Google concentrates on hardware, hires ex Motorola president Rick Osterloh as senior VP

Google has hired Rock Osterloh as senior VP of a shiny new hardware division. Osterloh used to be president of Motorola, a company that Google sold to Lenovo. A Google representative confirmed the appointment to re/code. There is a shakeup in Google’s hardware division. Osterloh will report directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Osterloh will be in charge of the Nexus hardware line now, and will co-ordinate with original equipment manufacturers. Currently the hardware side of the Nexus line was managed by Google Senior Vice President Hiroshi Lockheimer. Lockheimer will continue to manage the software side of Nexus, and development of the Nexus platform. Chromecast and Chromecast Audio, which was also being overseen by Lockheimer till now, will be Osterloh’s responsibility. He will also be handling the Chromebook series of laptops. OnHub is a Wi-Fi router focused on streaming and sharing capabilities. OnHub belonged to Google’s parent company, Alphabet, but now these devices come under Google and Osterloh’s umbrella. ATAP was a Motorola division, in the news for the development of modular smartphones. Osterloh should be comfortable managing this department as well, considering his experience at Motorola. The final technology product under Osterloh in this reshuffle, is Glass. Google Glass no longer makes products for direct consumption by consumers anymore, but the project is till active for enterprise partners, most notably working with emerging medical technologies.