The unsatisfactory year 2012 has passed. In 2013, Liu Ruoyi received a message that Google was interested in selling the soon-to-be-acquired MOTO mobile. After spending a huge amount of money to win MOTO Mobile, in addition to getting the much-needed patents, Google also had to endure the loss of $1 billion of MOTO Mobile.

Now that almost all the fixed assets that MOTO can sell have been sold, looking at the continuous decline of MOTO's own business, the internal can't help but throw away this burden.

In the eyes of Google's top management, MOTO mobile has become incorrigible, and the sooner you get rid of it, you can get rid of the drag one day earlier. MOTO mobile massive patents have laid an unshakable patent foundation for the development of Android system, Google has begun to show signs of hegemony in the mobile operating system, in 2012 in the global mobile operating system market share, Android has accounted for 59% of the high!

It can be said that MOTO has been drained of oil and water, and now it is time to throw it out for waste reuse.

But even if it's waste, there aren't too many potential buyers who can afford it at the same time. Google's top management pondered and decided to sell to Greater China to test the waters.

That's why Liu Ruoyi received this news. After all, she is now the number one person in the IT industry.

The first reaction was that Liu Ruoyi wanted his high-dimensional mobile communications to take it, but after thinking about it carefully, he vetoed his idea.

The reason is very simple, the brand of high-dimensional mobile communication is too low-end, and the plate is small, and the acquisition of such a former mobile phone giant, snake swallowing elephants, is a huge harm to the MOTO brand.

So after thinking about it carefully, Liu Ruoyi gave up this tempting idea.

After carefully calculating the strength in his hand and thinking about it, Liu Ruoyi focused his eyes on the movement of the sun and calculated.

From a business point of view, Sun Microsystems, which is now transforming into mobile computing, has taken on the burden of mobile application processor research and development. After the merger and acquisition of MOTO, it happened to be the largest user of its own mobile processor.

From the current world's top mobile phone companies, both Apple and SS are developing mobile processors by themselves.

In terms of scale, the current recovery of the Sun Mobile Computing Company is also much larger than MOTO, and has always had a leading industry image of technology, relatively speaking, the integration of the two will not have a negative impact on the MOTO brand.

The most important thing is that the current Sun Mobile Computing is still listed on the U.S. stock market, and the holding behind it is an offshore investment institution in the Cayman Islands, which is an out-and-out American enterprise from the pedigree.

In this way, the future development of MOTO mobile in Europe and the United States will basically not be constrained, for Liu Ruoyi, after MOTO mobile changes hands, it is natural that it will be an attacker in the high-end mobile phone market.

After losing HTC's shares, Liu Ruoyi now has no fist in his hand that can exert his strength in the high-end mobile phone market.

...

Dream Corporate Headquarters. Liu Yuanyuan also received the news. Although Dream Mobile phones are now sold in the operator's channel and shipped more than 50 million customized phones a year, they are basically low-end mobile phones.

There is not a single high-end mobile phone that can play.

There is no way, according to the company's assembly low-cost development, I have always dreamed that mobile phones rely on volume to win. Although life is not good, the R&D investment is also small, and it can barely survive.

Now there is such an opportunity to move towards a high-end brand.

Is it better to broaden the horizon at this time? Or is it better to watch the wind and clouds quietly?

Liu Yuan is hesitating, after all, this kind of thing of annexing big foreign brands is not something that Dream Company has never done, but the result of the last operation was a great loss of vitality, and it took several years to climb out of the quagmire of losses.

Dream Company is a listed company, and many people want to scold their mothers when their market value falls, and Liu Yuanyuan really doesn't have the confidence to make a profit after mergers and acquisitions.

How can I digest an international big brand, Liu Yuanyuan knows it, and it's all tears?

...

As for other copycat mobile phone companies or mainland brand mobile phone companies that received the news, when they heard that the price was tens of billions of yuan, they all said that they had more than enough energy.

...

"Kevin, hasn't a company come to talk about MOTO yet?" A month after the news was released, Larry couldn't help but call Kevin Nicholas, vice president of mobile business.

"yes, Larry, maybe we should put out another price point, what do you think of $3 billion? They might think it's $5 billion or $6 billion, it's too expensive to afford. Kevin Nicholas said.

"But we know that as long as we sell more than $2.5 billion, thank God, the more we carry this burden, the less valuable it becomes. ”

"Maybe you should talk to Lehman's Chandler, who has made several big deals for the Orientals in recent years. Larry nodded, and then gave Kevin Nicholas a face-to-face lecture.

"Understand, we still have to find the right person to talk to. Kevin Nicholas understood.

...

God, Chandler was going to give himself a long vacation to relax.

But a party made Chandler deviate from his vacation plan.

"Tony, Google is very clearly showing a tendency to sell MOTO," Chandler said with the news that he found his real boss, Tony Tsai of West Coast Capital.

"I think this is a new opportunity, in my opinion, although the peak of the mobile phone market has passed, but the industry space is really vast, and it is still an attractive industry. ”

"From the perspective of the big picture, although Apple and SS companies occupy the high-end mobile phone market, but they are not invulnerable, HTC was extremely active in the first two years, and once hit a terrifying market value of 33 billion US dollars. ”

"Now MOTO is asking for $3 billion, which is already a lot of value range, you must know that Google spent $12.5 billion two years ago, although now they do not have a detailed list of sales, I believe there is a strong room for negotiation. ”

As an investment banker who buys and sells companies for a living, Chandler is very dedicated to his profession, although he has not received the news for a few days, but it is enough for him to sort out a lot of macro information in this industry.

There is no profit without trading, which is the most basic way to make money in the M&A division.

Although winning Oi is enough to give the M&A division a year's vacation, who will have too much business to come to the door.

What's more, this opportunity is so suggestive that Chandler has to take the initiative to find Tony Tsai to promote it.

In Chandler's eyes, this is a really rich man, and he has great influence on the Xiangjiang side.

"Mr. Chandler, go back and prepare a detailed report, we need to assess the feasibility of this matter and some options to solve the MOTO dilemma. "Tony Chua certainly received instructions from Liu, but he didn't have a better chance.

Now, that opportunity has begun to emerge.

...

The news of Sun Mobile Computing's acquisition of MOTO Mobile did not cause much turmoil in the industry.

MOTO Mobile's influence in the industry is already very small, and it has basically been pushed out of the charts and included in other statistics.

Only a truly veteran in the mobile phone industry will sigh a few times that the former mobile overlord is now being thrown around like a rag.

Negotiations are easy to get into, but it is difficult to make progress, although Google broke the price of $3 billion, but when Tony Tsai got the list of assets, he found that it was not the same thing at all.

"Mr. Kevin, are you making a mistake with this list?" said Tony Tsai, gesturing to the report in his hand.

"If I'm not mistaken, there should have been more than 17,000 patents under the name of MOTO Mobile, but now there are only more than 2,000 patents?"

The listed assets are either R&D centers (personnel) or factories that are not of great use, but Google takes the really valuable things. And very clean.

"Those patents are not necessarily related to this deal. Kevin Nicholas didn't expect the negotiator of the East to see it so quickly.

Google wants to get rid of the baggage, not the gold.

"What are we going to buy without patents, and are we going to spend billions of dollars to buy your baggage?" said Tony Tsai unceremoniously.

"Mr. Kevin, if it's just these things, I don't think we have much to talk about. ”

For a world-class technology enterprise, it is based on the patents it has in the industry, if MOTO is transferred to its own technical core, it is really picking up other people's rags, just such a group of old friends to pick up home to help them care for the elderly?

Kevin didn't expect it to be such an impasse at first. You didn't expect this situation in advance.

Kevin's understanding of this West Coast Capital, which was born with a relatively strong oriental background, is still not enough, but he only knows that they bought the solar microsystem, which has now been renamed Solar Movement Computing.

The other party is now trying to merge MOTO Mobile into Sun Mobile Computing, spanning the two major markets of server and communication products, and this layout looks beautiful.

"Maybe we should adjourn the meeting and sort out where we stand with each other. Kevin Nicholas smiled helplessly. He has no right to make any commitments.

The next step is up to the company's management to deal with it.

...

Three days later.

"Google shares all the patents of MOTO Mobile, and after the merger and acquisition, it is willing to sign a patent exchange cooperation agreement in the field of mobile communications with Sun Mobile Computing to deal with patent disputes together, on the condition that MOTO Mobile cannot use its own mobile operating system, but use Google's Android. Kevin Nicholas restarted negotiations after receiving the latest authorization from the board.

Tony Tsai agreed with this condition after a brief communication with his intellectual property lawyer.

It is impossible to let Google completely transfer it, and it took so much money to get it, which is to find a strong intellectual property base for the Android system, and now with this patent in hand, no company wants to break through the barriers of Android with a patent.

MOTO, which has been deeply cultivated for decades, has accumulated patents in this area, and no company can avoid it. Even Qualcomm can't get around it.

So everybody is empowering each other, hello, hello, I'm good.

"However, given the enormous amount of effort we have to pay in this area, we want to increase the transfer price to $4 billion. Seeing the other party's approval, Kevin immediately threw out a new offer from his side.

The $1 billion offer seems high, but Kevin thinks it's worth it.

Tony Chua did not respond immediately to the other party's price increase, but asked for a second adjournment.

This is a big change, and Tony Tsai can't give an answer on the spot.

After an intense re-evaluation by Chandler's M&A advisory group, they put forward their own proposal, and the other party's request for a price increase was reasonable, but the price was too high, and MOTO Mobile is now acting as a party to the patent rights rather than the owner, and cannot re-authorize a third party to profit in terms of value.

Google can use the ownership sub-licensing fee, so in terms of valuation, the M&A team recommended $500 million, which means that $3.5 billion is a reasonable transaction price for both parties.

After the launch of the third negotiation meeting, Tony Tsai put forward his own counter-offer and rationale, and despite the fierce opposition of the other side, the negotiating team still stuck to its principles.

The two sides pulled up the distance for nearly 2 weeks, and finally Google chose to compromise, after all, the original intention was to throw away the baggage, and now although it is said that it provides the other party with an extra layer of patent protection, but in essence, Google has not lost more things.

On the contrary, every quarter, MOTO Mobile continues to lose money.

So, in the end, Larry came out and made a decision, and the two sides closed for $3.5 billion.

The next step is the regulatory approval process, from the perspective of this merger and acquisition, there are no sensitive issues, and it is a "U.S.-funded" internal merger. Basically, there will be no more sprints in terms of approvals.

Sure enough, the acquisition was approved by the management in less than a month. Solar Mobility Computing has successfully incorporated MOTO mobility into the bag.

According to Liu Ruoyi's plan, after the completion of the merger and acquisition of MOTO Mobile, all the low-end models were greatly cut and R&D resources were concentrated on the research and development of the high-end model MOTO X.

The original R&D personnel of the low-end models were all assigned to the MOTO 360 phone watch and MOTO XOOM tablet project, and now it is time to fully replace them with their own Aries processors.

Since this change did not involve a change in personnel, the switch was basically completed very calmly.

However, in terms of factory integration, Sun Mobile Computing is preparing to integrate the production of mobile phone terminals into the factories in the mainland of High-Dimensional Mobile Communications, which has led to the loss of hundreds of original MOTO production line workers, and Sun Mobile Computing has paid a lot of money to settle it.

Thankfully, Moto Mobile has shrunk dramatically, and Google has shrunk its staff to less than 3,500 in the past two years.

This greatly reduces the pressure on the solar mobile computing that took over, and after laying off production line workers, it can be further enhanced in terms of channels and R&D.

Among them, the channels are mainly in Europe, America and South America, and the increase in R&D resources is naturally placed in MOTO Mobile's mainland R&D center.

In this way, there will be a lot of control space in cost control.

It's just that now no one can imagine what the future of MOTO mobility will become.

It's just that after winning MOTO Mobile, Oi Telecom's high-end customized machine Yingying quickly designated MOTO Mobile to provide it. It's just that when Liu Ruoyi chosen, she didn't fancy the Motorola Razr i, which was destined to disappear with Intel ATOM processors.

Instead, they chose another model, the Nexus 4, which was taken from Google, even though it was produced and shipped by a Korean mobile phone company.

However, after the merger, it has now been completely reclaimed and owned under the umbrella of MOTO Mobile, and the production and sales of the MOTO Nexus 4 have been changed.

The excellent 4.7-inch high-definition large screen, the smooth operation of the fruit machine and the excellent 8-million-pixel camera make the MOTO Nexus 4 have the style of a high-end machine.

When this high-end phone appeared in the South American mobile phone deposit and mobile phone delivery activity, although the effect was much worse than that of the original G1 in Southeast Asia, it also reversed the trend of high-end user loss for Oi Telecom.

The advantages of PCCW's lost high-end customization machine have been regained on MOTO Mobile.