Motorola Unloads Good Technology After Just Two Years

Is Motorola shying away from its aspirations to compete with Research In Motion for business customers? That's what the sale of its Good Technology unit to Visto might suggest. Motorola bought the mobile messaging company just two years ago, but the company's fortunes have been on a steep decline since then, and it could be ready to refocus on the consumer market. Struggling mobile phone maker Motorola (NYSE: MOT) announced Tuesday that it will sell Good Technology -- its "push" email, calendar and contacts unit -- to Visto. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close at the end of the month, were not disclosed. The sale comes just a little more than two years after Motorola acquired Good Technology in an attempt to compete with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) for a larger share of the business customer market. The sale of Good Technology is part of Motorola's strategy for turning around its flagging mobile device business by making it leaner and more focused on the consumer market. It also rids Motorola of a troublesome asset. In 2006, Visto sued Good Technology for infringing on patents associated with its push email and synchronization technology. Motorola's stock was up 3.58 percent to US$3.76 per share in mid-day trading on Tuesday.