FORTUNE — For years, investors said Motorola lacked focus and needed to split up. In January, the company took their advice, creating Motorola Solutions, a maker of public safety equipment and barcode scanners, and Motorola Mobility to produce smartphones, tablets and set-top boxes.
But when Fortune spoke with Motorola Mobility’s (MMI) chairman and CEO Sanjay Jha earlier this year, he left the door open to a major deal and cast doubt on the company’s ability to go it alone. His answers in the video below strongly prefigure today’s announcement that Google (GOOG) intends to acquire the company.
“I expect consolidation to occur. Our customers are consolidating, our suppliers are consolidating,” Jha told Fortune’s Geoff Colvin. Tellingly, he added that he didn’t see Motorola hooking up with another handset manufacturer. “Consolidation across software and hardware manufacturers create [the most] shareholder value,” he said, nodding to Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) Palm acquisition and Microsoft’s (MSFT) deal with Nokia (NOK). Watch his comments in the following clip:
[cnnmoney-video vid=/video/technology/2011/06/22/t_ls_motorola_split.fortune]
Jha also discussed the difference between Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Page, he said, is much more focused on the minutia of product details. Now, he’ll have a wide range of hardware products to focus on.
[cnnmoney-video vid=//video/technology/2011/06/22/t_ls_motorola_google2.fortune]
