Lenovo to let Motorola brand R.I.P

Lenovo has allowed Motorola to operate in an almost unchanged way since it bought the company from Google in 2012. But now plans are afoot within Lenovo to bring all mobile phones under one brand and kill the iconic Motorola brand.

This was confirmed by Motorola's chief operating officer Rick Osterloh in an interview with CNET. "We'll slowly phase out Motorola," Osterloh told CNET on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "(We will) focus on Moto."

This means that Lenovo is finally moving to consolidate its mobile phone business under a single department, internally and externally. This makes operational sense for Lenovo. So the Motorola brand will be gradually phased out. But it doesn't mean the end of Moto phones.

Apparently, Moto will continue to be a phone category or a brand name, just like the Vibe is for Lenovo. So in future Moto phones will probably carry the brand tag "Moto by Lenovo". The Moto phones will also probably continue to carry the bat-shape M logo.

In a statement, Motorola has confirmed the move.  "Motorola Mobility continues to exist as a Lenovo company and is the engineering and design engine for all of our mobile products. However, for our product branding we will utilise a dual brand strategy across smartphone and wearables going forward using Moto and Vibe globally. 'Motorola' hasn't been used on our products since the launch of the original Moto X in 2013," it said.

While for consumers it may not change anything - after all, Lenovo is already the company that owns Motorola - yet it is impossible not to feel a little nostalgic about Motorola. The company and its name are iconic because it has been associated with the mobile phone market since the very beginning. In fact, it is the company that actually came out with the first mobile phone.

Motorola has also done well after 2012 when, under the aegis of Google, it changed its business strategy. It got rid of the Droid phones that it used to sell and came out with the Moto range, which has been received extremely well among consumers due to its clean software, reliable performance and decent price.

The CNET report says that the Lenovo would continue to use Moto as a brand and would position it as a sort of premium offering from Lenovo. It is possible that in the coming days, Lenovo may keep the Moto brand as the online-only, high-end brand in countries like India while tackling the mainstream market with Vibe phones.

If and when Motorola rides into the sunset, it would follow the iconic Nokia brand. Earlier, Microsoft gradually phased out the Nokia branding from its smartphones even as it kept the Lumia tag attached to the Windows phones. Lenovo's strategy seems to be somewhat similar.