Qualcomm Exec Sanjay Jha named Co-CEO of Motorola Handset Business
Sorry, Mr. Block, Motorola has decided to take their handset business in another direction. To wit: they've named Sanjay Jha their next CEO of their mobile devices business, he'll serve as Co-CEO with Greg Brown. Jha, we assume, reads email directly on the computer (unlike, according to rumors, his Co-CEO), as he's formerly of Qualcomm. There's a tiny twinge of irony here since Motorola recently ditched Qualcomm chipsets in favor of Texas Instruments. Then again, given Jha's Qualcomm roots, one could be forgiven for secretly hoping for Motorola devices powered by Snapdragon (Jha's understandably fond of the platform).
Jha headed up Qualcomm's CDMA technologies unit - which we take to generally be a good sign for Motorola if only because he will probably have experience navigating US law after all that 3G chip ban and patent fight craziness that went down last year.
Eventually, if all goes according to plan, Jha will be a CEO minus that “Co-” part, as Motorola still plans on spinning off their handset division into a separate company.
Good luck to you, Dr. Sanjay Jha. As I mentioned on my appearance on the T4 show last night, the Motorola Q9h is still my favorite smartphone of the past year or so; I still believe Moto has the chops to release another favorite. In the meantime, we wouldn't complain if you cleared up the mysterious disappearance of the Sprint Q9c.
