Motorola sells mobile messaging platform to VISTO

Motorola has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Good Technology, it’s mobile email and wireless messaging service. The purchasing company, VISTO,  is a mobile push and synchronization platform for service providers. The terms and costs are unknown, but the transaction should be closed by the end of February.

This acquisition adds a full range of secure, telco-grade mobile messaging solutions to the VISTO platform, as well as adding several Fortune 500 clients to it’s customer base.

From the release:

“This transaction marks another important milestone in VISTO’s emergence as a worldwide leader for mobile access to applications and content, especially messaging and collaboration data. Good’s robust enterprise and government solution will complement VISTO’s strong operator presence in business and consumer markets,” said Brian A. Bogosian, CEO of VISTO. “As a result of this transaction, VISTO will now provide customers in over 100 countries an open, robust and secure mobile experience for enterprise customers, on over 400 different mobile devices.”

“We believe that this transaction is in the best interest of our customers, employees and shareholders,” said Gene Delaney, president, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, Motorola, Inc. “VISTO’s acquisition of Good will allow Motorola to continue to concentrate on providing best-in-class business-critical applications, secure management platforms and mobility services that empower the individual with the right information at the right time to streamline business processes and improve results.”

What we think?

It’s not really up for question that this is a good thing for VISTO - congratulations, guys. But what does this say for Motorola? Good Technologies has thousands of relationships in place with enterprises, including (as mentioned above) many Fortune 500 clients. Why is Motorola selling it off? Are things going so badly for them that they have to make a sell like this to shore up creaky finances? The word “streamlining” pops to mind. Or is this a symptom of something else altogether?