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Motorola CEO Greg Brown is taking over the reigns of the company's Mobile Device division—which includes cell phones, smartphones and PDAs. The decision was revealed to employees in an internal memo last week, Reuters reports. By doing so, Brown is taking a direct role in the attempt to make Motorola’s struggling mobile phone business profitable again.

Brown replaces Stu Reed, who'd been handset head since September. In spite of the demotion, it’s been written that Reed plans to remain with Motorola to help Brown manage the mobile phone business, however.

It’s been a little over a month ago since Brown moved up to CEO from COO, taking over as top executive from Ed Zander, who remains with Motorola ‘s the Chairman of the board.

Until recently, Motorola's handset business accounted for 50 percent of revenue and profits. The division lost $388 million last quarter, through. And Motorola's fallen to a distant third behind Samsung and market leader Nokia in the world's mobile phone market.

Meanwhile, last week Motorola announced it may perform a sweeping realignment and restructuring of the Mobile Devices unit or spinning or spin it off as a separate company. Brown taking over the leadership position of division indicates Motorola closer to doing the former than the latter, at least at this point.

Motorola’s announcement has lead to speculation that Motorola may even sell its mobile phone business off to a third party. One analyst estimates the unit could fetch Motorola as much as $8 billion.