Rick Osterloh, former president of Motorola, is now Senior Vice President at Google in charge of a new hardware division that includes the company’s Nexus devices, living room gadgets and Glass, Re/code reports. This means Nest CEO Tony Fadell is no longer leading Google’s Glass initiatives, a role he took on in January 2015, though he’ll stay on as a team adviser.
Osterloh is no stranger to Google — he led product development during Motorola’s tenure under Google and helped develop the Moto X, Moto 360 and early Droid efforts.
Osterloh’s appointment marks a shift in Google’s approach to hardware, Re/code reports. The new hardware division is broad, covering Nexus phones, OnHub, Glass, Chromecast, consumer products like the Chromebook and Pixel C, and the experimental lab making the Project Ara modular phone, ATAP. Many of these efforts were spread across other Alphabet divisions, but now they all report to Osterloh.
We’ll see if he can make Google’s products, like Glass, work for the real world.
Source: Re/code