Hot on the heels of reports claiming Motorola laid-off 50% of its engineering team at its Chicago headquarters, another one's popped up suggesting that there's even more happening behind the scenes.
According to Android Police, Motorola has canceled the Moto X5 that was scheduled for a release at some point this year. The X5 would be a successor to the mostly well-received Moto X4 that came out last September, and early leaks of the phone made it look fairly enticing.
By canceling the Moto X5, Motorola will apparently shift its focus to its E, G, and Z phones. You could make the argument that the company's doing this to cut back on the crazy number of devices it releases each year, but on the other hand, we're still expecting three versions of the Moto G and two options for the E and Z series this year.
Going forward, Motorola will focus on the Moto E, G, and Z.
Additionally, Motorola is also said to be changing its approach to Moto Mods. Rather than releasing ones that appeal to niche markets (such as Polaroid printers, projectors, etc.), the company will instead focus on ones that it "believes can actually turn a profit."
As a long-time fan of Motorola, this recent round of news is awfully disheartening. The Moto X4 was a far cry from entries in the X line before it, but it was still one of my favorite phones Motorola released in all of 2017. Now that it's supposedly being canned, we're left with two budget series and a flagship one that heavily relies on a modular system I'm still not sold on.
The future isn't looking bright for Motorola right now, but we'll be sure to keep an eye on things to see what happens from here.
Motorola reportedly laying off up to half of its Chicago engineering staff
