Lenovo Chief Marketing Officer David Roman recently said in an interview that "Two and a Half Men" star Ashton Kutcher plans to help design a line of special-edition phones for Lenovo that will launch sometime in 2014.
The former "That '70s Show" star was actually hired by Lenovo back in October 2013 as a "product engineer" to develop and promote the Yoga tablet line. Kutcher, who studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before pursuing a modelling career, will provide input on the design, specs and software of future Lenovo products.
"This partnership with Lenovo brings together my love of technology and design that makes your life better," said Kutcher. "I can't wait to dig in and help Lenovo develop future mobile computing products."
In the interview with Re/code, Roman said that Kutcher will not have any part of the phone's design circuitry, but he'll definitely have full input on the user experience. Roman didn't elaborate on the comment, but instead said that the idea of Kutcher designing a phone may sound corny, but it's the real deal.
"He not only sees himself as an engineer, but he is an engineer. If he sees a problem, he wants to solve it," Roman added.
Lenovo is currently in the process of acquiring Motorola Mobility from Google in a $2.91 billion deal. Google said that Motorola Mobility would essentially be better off with Lenovo because the smartphone market is so super-competitive. Plus, Lenovo has a rapidly growing smartphone business, and based on what firm you ask, Lenovo is at the top of the PC market.
"Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola into a major player within the Android ecosystem. They have a lot of experience in hardware, and they have global reach. In addition, Lenovo intends to keep Motorola's distinct brand identity—just as they did when they acquired ThinkPad from IBM in 2005," said Google CEO Larry Page.
UPDATE: Lenovo sent over a statement saying that "the development agreement Lenovo has with Ashton Kutcher is for tablets only, and not for smartphones."
