Last night, it was reported that Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside would be stepping down from his position to become the chief operating officer at cloud storage company Dropbox. Woodside has now confirmed this decision in a blog post on the Official Motorola Blog, saying that he will step down as CEO at the end of March.
Woodside goes on to announce that Jonathan Rosenberg, who was the SVP of Products at Google from 2002 until 2011, will step in as COO at Motorola Mobility on April 1st. Rosenberg worked closely with Woodside and was “intimately involved” with decisions at Motorola. Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora will remain Executive Chairman of the Motorola Operating Board and continue to oversee strategy at the company. It looks as if Motorola will be going without a CEO after Woodside leaves, leaving Lenovo with a lot of control.
Woodside says he is leaving Motorola Mobility “in great hands” and that he is immensely proud of what the company has accomplished in the past 18 months. He also notes that he is excited for the next chapter for the company under Lenovo, who purchased it for $3 billion last month.
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston has also issued a statement on the news.
“We’ve long admired Dennis’s leadership at Google and Motorola where he ran multi-billion dollar businesses and built amazing organizations around the world. We’re so happy to welcome Dennis to our team — I can’t imagine a better person to help us bring Dropbox to global scale.”
Read the full resignation letter after the jump:
At the end of March I will step down from my post as CEO at Motorola Mobility to join Dropbox as COO. This was not an easy decision to make, but I leave knowing that Motorola is in great hands – now and in the future.In the last 18 months, Motorolans have built two of the company’s best loved phones ever, introduced customization to the industry, brought unprecedented quality and performance to a value-priced smartphone, and created experiences that changed how people use and interact with their smartphones.It was a reinvention the likes of which many 85-year-old brands could not have achieved. And it was astonishing to be a part of.I’m excited about what the next chapter in Motorola’s storied history will bring under the new ownership of Lenovo. While Google imbued simplicity and software sensibility into the company, Lenovo will bring it the scale it deserves. I have no doubt the two companies together will be a force for good in the mobile industry
To ensure that Motorola maintains its current momentum and successfully transitions to Lenovo ownership, Jonathan Rosenberg, a longtime Googler and SVP of Products from 2002 to 2011, will step in as COO at Motorola Mobility as of April 1. Jonathan worked very closely with me to build the leadership team at Motorola and has been intimately involved in steering business and product decisions alongside with the current leadership team. Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora will remain Executive Chairman of the Motorola Operating Board, and continue to oversee the strategy.
With their support, the entire Motorola management team remains focused on our current strategy and on creating great mobile devices that deliver the mobile Internet to millions more people around the world.
That’s something we can all rally behind.
Sincerely,
Dennis Woodside
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