In the middle of April 2014 Zebra Technologies announced to buy enterprise division of Motorola Solutions for $3.45 billion. Zebra plans to fund the deal with about $200 million of cash and $3.25 billion in new debt. An interesting fact is that the worth of Zebra Technologies itself is $3.4 billion only and it is significantly smaller that Motorola's enterprise division. About 4,500 Motorola employees will join Zebra when the deal is finished. It should happen until the end of 2014.
The deal leaves Motorola with only its government-services unit and iDEN network technology.
Technology experts and Motorola's employees have generally a positive undestanding of this deal. Zebra's traditional portfolio, bar code printers, will be supplemented by the barcode readers and enterprise mobile devices. And I would add a bit of nostalgia, it will overwrite the third one brand: Symbol > Motorola > Zebra.