Motorola's smartphone business has been a story with a ton of ups and downs. They helped to really spark the Android craze with the Verizon Motorola Droid, but subsequently lost a lot of ground to HTC and then Samsung. That eventually turned into a sale to Google and the promising but underwhelming Moto X line, after which Google sold the company off to Lenovo.
Lenovo's Motorola released the Moto Z line as well as Moto Mods for those devices, which are arguably some of the most creative devices in the market today. Despite that, sales haven't been good enough, and now Motorola is anticipating another rough patch.
Rumor has it that some Motorola employees, specifically in the company's Chicago office, will be laid off with their last day being in April. Estimates have the downsizing between 30 and 50% of the entire office, so it's a pretty sizable chunk of employees.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, that means that the Moto Z line is probably in jeopardy. Even third party Moto Mod manufacturers have heard some disheartening news that's slowed adoption, so another round of bad news will make that even worse.
Motorola has played a very important part in Android's history, but that chapter might just be coming to a close.
source: 9to5 Google
