Google Acquires Motorola Mobility

[Deeko]

Wow! Now that's certainly not the news I expected to wake up to this morning.

This is certainly good news for Motorola...and as others have said, strengthens their patent position. However, I can't help but think this will push Samsung and HTC away from Android a little.

This will be interesting...

 

[Anubis]

do you guys think they will sell their verizon phones the way they do with nexus, unlocked without contract

we can always hope

 

[Pliablemoose]

I think Android as we know it just died...

 

[LostPassword]

3rd parties should still be cool. They still have their own skins to differentiate. Plus google makes money from android marketplace. although maybe nokia was right teaming up with microsoft afterall.

 

[Stifko]

google wants to be apple. good for google, horrible for consumers

why is it bad for consumers?

 

[Jeffg010]

I'm not sure why this is bad either. What it should do is get some good competition between Google and Apple. It will be interesting to see what happens this coming year. Google is going to want to get that market share and I see this as their chance.

The future is mobile devices and if you are not a player you going to be left behind.

 

[smartpatrol]

It's ALL about patents. It's no coincidence that this happened right after Motorola started making noise about suing other Android manufacturers. Florian Mueller even predicted this here: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/motorola-doesnt-have-license-to-kill.html

"Some believe that Motorola Mobility may threaten with patent enforcement against Android in order to pressure Google to buy it. I don't know, but it's possible that this is one of the intended effects."

This might actually turn out to be good news for the other Android OEMs.

Gotta give props to Sanjay Jha for turning their money-losing company around:
1. Start dropping hints that you're thinking about suing the crap out of all the other Android handset makers, and that you might even switch to WP7.
2. Get Google to buy you out at a 63% price premium per share.
3. Profit!

 

[Cuda1447]

I'm not sure why this is bad either. What it should do is get some good competition between Google and Apple. It will be interesting to see what happens this coming year. Google is going to want to get that market share and I see this as their chance.

The future is mobile devices and if you are not a player you going to be left behind.

We don't have good competition between google and apple right now?

 

[Jeffg010]

http://www.todaysiphone.com/2011/07/ios-vs-android-googles-got-market-share-apples-got-the-cash/

Apple makes real money Google does not. Yes I don't think the competition has been that good YET.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this improve Google's IP and patent portfolio situation significantly?

Google just became the 500lb gorilla in the Cellular market when talking about IP. Forget obscure patents trying to be vague about the look and feel of one device or another, try making a phone call on a cell without using Moto IP.

They become Hardware & software manufacturers, one of a select few (Apple, RIM & Nokia).

Since when has Apple made hardware? Last I knew that ended a long time ago? Not sure if Motorola makes hardware either honestly, have to research that.

 

[you2]

Hum. It is amusing it is an all cash deal as normally a deal this large would be for stock+cash.

As to impact on consumers? Only time will tell. Google is a business and not everything they do is in consumers best interest but that doesn't mean this deal will hurt or help consumers. My personal hope is that moto continues to make fine phones but drop the locked boot loaders and moto blur (which imho was just plain awful).
-
Anyways the patents are likely the primary motivation but I think there is a larger issue here with how patents are awarded and hopefully there will be some clean up in that area as companies become more aggressive in their usage of patents.

My personal believe is that there are a lot of valid patents as well as a lot of trivial patents (stuff that should never have been patent-able in the first place). Unfortunately the court system seems ineffective at dealing with the patent issue (in part due to the significant cost which many small companies can't address).

Anyways with regards to cost; one have to figure that part of that cost needs to be weighed against Google's perceived liability without the patents. While I have no clue as to internal dynamics in this area I'm sure Google's legal team had some inclination as to their exposure and if the acquired patents would provide much leverage countering that exposure.
-
Oh well it would be nice to see the full inside scoop on these sort of things but I doubt such will be presented.
-
Anyways the space is fast moving so hopefully this time next year more will be known.

 

[gorcorps]

Couldn't this also hurt other Android developers? Despite the OS being free, some manufacturers might want to avoid competing with Google's own devices which will probably receive some preferential treatment?

IMO this is a good thing because it will keep Android devices competitive. There's plenty of mobile competition across the different device OSes, but there's also a lot of competition with just Android phone manufacturers themselves. If google is going to help Moto step up their game, then Samsung, HTC, etc will all have to step it up as well.

I think this will be awesome for Android fans, and it'll trickle down to being good for the phone market as a whole.

 

[Pliablemoose]

http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/

At this point, it's all about the patents. If so, we should see Google sell off Motorola without the patents, likely to a Chinese manufacturer like Huwaii or ZTE. That's another issue, Google has a bad taste in it's mouth after dealing with China, they can't have been too happy to pick up a company that has all it's devices built there.

We shall see.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

IMO this is a good thing because it will keep Android devices competitive. There's plenty of mobile competition across the different device OSes, but there's also a lot of competition with just Android phone manufacturers themselves. If google is going to help Moto step up their game, then Samsung, HTC, etc will all have to step it up as well.

I think this will be awesome for Android fans, and it'll trickle down to being good for the phone market as a whole.

In all likelihood, Motorola will be a special part of Google which means they'll get preferential treatment (see Nexus One/S). Google will be able to push their own phones with features that probably wouldn't be available for other handsets.

In the end, I think they bought Motorola more for the patents than the actual hardware.

 

[Red Storm]

In all likelihood, Motorola will be a special part of Google which means they'll get preferential treatment (see Nexus One/S). Google will be able to push their own phones with features that probably wouldn't be available for other handsets.

In the end, I think they bought Motorola more for the patents than the actual hardware.

Nexus One/S don't get preferential treatment, it's carriers and 3rd party manufacturers who are in no rush to approve updates to their handsets that gives this impression. Don't blame Google for their failures.

It would be pretty stupid for Google to deny features to other manufacturers, I don't see that happening. I'm pretty sure they bought Moto for the patents.

 

[Deeko]

http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/

At this point, it's all about the patents. If so, we should see Google sell off Motorola without the patents, likely to a Chinese manufacturer like Huwaii or ZTE. That's another issue, Google has a bad taste in it's mouth after dealing with China, they can't have been too happy to pick up a company that has all it's devices built there.

We shall see.

That'd sure be a kick in the face to Motorola...buy them up, eat their patents, spit out the remains. Sanjay Jha would love it.

 

[Pliablemoose]

That'd sure be a kick in the face to Motorola...buy them up, eat their patents, spit out the remains. Sanjay Jha would love it.

It's the only thing Google can do, they won't tolerate owning/working with Chinese sweatshops, it doesn't fit with their corporate culture.

Sanjay likely just became richer than god, and made the shareholders of MMI very happy, he leveraged the threat of lawsuits against other manufacturers of Android OS'd phones using IP patents into Google being forced to buy them lock, stock, and barrel.

 

[silverpig]

80% patents, 20% hardware IMO. I think for that price, Google will be doing the patent lawsuit thing just to show how stupid it is (and they will be public about it), but they will also keep the hardware division. They bid ~$3 billion for Nortel patents, there's no way they would go for $12.5 billion for Motorola's patents alone. Yes, Moto probably has a much bigger portfolio than Nortel has, but still.

I would love nothing better than for Apple to announce the iPhone 5 in October with a November launch, and for Google to get an injunction against Apple, preventing them from selling the iPhone 5 until after Christmas, just so everyone can see how fucking stupid this shit is.

<-- iPhone 4 owner typing this on a MacBook pro.

 

[senseamp]

Nailed it in the "what if" thread last night:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32130500&postcount=269

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Nexus One/S don't get preferential treatment, it's carriers and 3rd party manufacturers who are in no rush to approve updates to their handsets that gives this impression. Don't blame Google for their failures.

It would be pretty stupid for Google to deny features to other manufacturers, I don't see that happening. I'm pretty sure they bought Moto for the patents.

Why can't I blame Google for their failures? They provide the software but allow the carriers and the manufacturers to customize it. They don't care because in the end people are still using their services so Google is still making money.

I don't know if this will get approved though. There's a lot of scrutiny on Google right now.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Yep, Sanjay just became worth 5.3 million dollars, doubling the value of his MMI stock, plus any options he may have...


http://eresearch.fidelity.com/erese...ml?stockspage=insidertransactions&symbols=MMI

 

[JS80]

http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/

At this point, it's all about the patents. If so, we should see Google sell off Motorola without the patents, likely to a Chinese manufacturer like Huwaii or ZTE. That's another issue, Google has a bad taste in it's mouth after dealing with China, they can't have been too happy to pick up a company that has all it's devices built there.

We shall see.

Consumers should hope it's about patents. But if it is, my question is, why not buy just the patents?

I'm still scratching my head on this move.

 

[Deeko]

Consumers should hope it's about patents. But if it is, my question is, why not buy just the patents?

I'm still scratching my head on this move.

Motorola would have to be willing to sell them the patents, and I can't imagine why they would have.

 

[foghorn67]

Nailed it in the "what if" thread last night:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32130500&postcount=269

I just came in here to post that you did that.

 

[alent1234]

if moto needed the cash they could have sold them the patents with a perpetual license on them

i'm predicting that google will get into the handset business and samsung, LG and HTC being the worthless knockoff builders that they are will run to microsoft