Google Acquires Motorola Mobility

[gotsmack]

This is a great move. Moto has always made great hardware with buggy software attached to it.

Google can get rid of Motoblur and protect their Android partners in one step.

I hope stock android comes on Moto phones in the future. This will make me consider Moto for my next phone in 2 years.

The down side is that I expect Moto to be the exclusive partner for their Nexus phones from now on. Maybe they won't even have Nexus phones after "Prime" or Nexus will just be a normal Moto product line that gets updated every year.

Anyway, Good Job Google!

 

[poofyhairguy]

Only Moto ONLY had Android phones. The Xoom basically was the Nexus tablet.This makes a lot of sense now.

 

[ultimatebob]

Makes perfect sense... Motorola and Google have had a good partnership up till now.

I just hope that the new unified MotoGoogle has the guts to stand up against Apple's patent trolling.

 

[WelshBloke]

Hmmmm... Googorola.

Sounds OK.

My main problem with Moto phones (since before there were smartphones) was the awful software on them. If theres a pure Android one released with unlocked bootloader it may be my first Moto phone in a long time.

I was tempted by the Defy because of its sturdiness, hopefully they make a descent version of it.

 

[Pliablemoose]

All I can say is Larry sure made a splash today...

 

[preslove]

Oracle doesn't want to kill Android- they want to profit off its success. Don't want to kill the goose who lays the golden eggs.

AppleSoft on the other hand want to kill Android. Both want to remove a competitor from the market.

What I imagine Google will do is put together these patents to form some sort of Android patent shield that is extended to any official Android partner. Much like was done with VP8.

This works great for Google as it gives partners advantages besides Google Apps and Honeycomb source code. Considering that Amazon seems intent on eventually releasing an Google-less Android device now Google has something to fight back with- Amazon's tablet won't be covered by these patents. Barnes and Nobles has to be really happy today.

It is obvious that Google doesn't want to sue other companies, it just wanted a big enough patent war-chest so if AppleSoft continued to believe the best way to compete with Android is lawsuits, Google can now trigger MAD for the entire industry.

I believe the statements from Android phone makers about the acquisition. I bet Google is already promising the umbrella. As of today Google also violated whatever patents HTC and Samsung are violating (at least a large chunk of them). It now has real skin in the hardware game. Its on.

I agree. This is Google's end move in the great patent war of 2010-2011. I see a bunch of settlements in the near future with cross licensing agreements finally being agreed upon.

 

[sjwaste]

This is a great move. Moto has always made great hardware with buggy software attached to it.

Google can get rid of Motoblur and protect their Android partners in one step.

I hope stock android comes on Moto phones in the future. This will make me consider Moto for my next phone in 2 years.

The down side is that I expect Moto to be the exclusive partner for their Nexus phones from now on. Maybe they won't even have Nexus phones after "Prime" or Nexus will just be a normal Moto product line that gets updated every year.

Anyway, Good Job Google!

Everything I read today said that Google is very cognizant that phone hardware is outside of their core competency and that Motorola would continue to be run as an entirely separate company. One item pointed out was that they would still have to bid and compete for the annual Nexus partnership.

I get that they might see some preference in reality, but it's not like Google is designing the hardware. If they don't like what Moto's team is putting out, they won't cripple the Nexus offering. That's not the right move for Google shareholders.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Everything I read today said that Google is very cognizant that phone hardware is outside of their core competency and that Motorola would continue to be run as an entirely separate company. One item pointed out was that they would still have to bid and compete for the annual Nexus partnership.

I get that they might see some preference in reality, but it's not like Google is designing the hardware. If they don't like what Moto's team is putting out, they won't cripple the Nexus offering. That's not the right move for Google shareholders.

I love it.

Google flipping buys Moto and tries to convince everyone that it will be business as usual for Android.

I even believed it for a few hours.

They bought Motorola folks, Page has been pushing Google into mobile for years, he's the guy behind virtually every move Google has made in the mobile space, and he just flipping bought Motorola.

 

[sjwaste]

I love it.

Google flipping buys Moto and tries to convince everyone that it will be business as usual for Android.

I even believed it for a few hours.

They bought Motorola folks, Page has been pushing Google into mobile for years, he's the guy behind virtually every move Google has made in the mobile space, and he just flipping bought Motorola.

I believe it. Motorola doesn't even make the most interesting Android devices right now. Google competes the Nexus partnership every year and selects the best product. Why would any of that change if it meant that releasing an inferior Nexus product is a lock at least for the next year or two?

I still think the primary motivation for the purchase was Google's patent portfolio. The patent game isn't about winning, its about having enough IP to bring about a legal stalemate.

Now, if you're saying a few years down the road, Google might start bringing Motorola more into the fold, designing hardware, etc. Yeah, I buy that, but definitely not right away and probably not next year either.

 

[akugami]

Apple and MS probably creamed themselves this morning. Google has patents oh shi-

Why would Apple and MS be creaming themselves? Operating under the assumption that Apple and MS's patents are still valid, Android developers will still have to pay them to license said patents. The real question is how likely Moto is in prevailing against MS and Apple in those respective lawsuits. As it now stands, no one really knows how the judge will rule in those cases.

If Moto's cases against MS and Apple looks like it will go in Moto's favor, I think Google made a really wise purchase and can use that as leverage in lowering or eliminating licensing fees that MS and Apple wants.

Google purchasing Motorola can be both a negative and a positive. What this does do is perhaps gives Google a potential leverage to lower any licensing fees or even eliminate many of them going forward. Google can also now develop a "Google phone / Nexus" inhouse where they relied on other OEM's before. This can be a design other OEM's can license much like how nVidia and AMD license their GPU's. This can potentially lower OEM costs in developing an Android phone. A huge boon.

On the other hand, this can make other OEM's not trust Google as much as well. Google making an inhouse phone means other Android OEM's are now competing with Android. Unless Google can lower the licensing cost that MS and Apple will be demanding, it may cost Android OEM's just as much to develop a MS phone as it dose an Android one. Meaning Google has lost it's cost advantage.

Overall, I think this was a really wise move by Google.

 

[alent1234]

Any patents that moto has are probably part of consortiums already or have separate licensing deals in place

 

[senseamp]

Google is now an end to end cloud computing platform. They already had the cloud side, now they have mobile devices, PCs, and television set top boxes. Whether Samsungs and HTC's are still selling Android phones themselves is pretty irrelevant to the picture. If Samsung and HTC get sued out of Android business, Google could have them bid against each other to supply phones under the Motorola/Google brand as ODMs, where Google will be the one bringing the patents, and reaping the rewards. The risk before was that all the manufacturers would bail on Android, now that is no longer a possibility, since Google has it's own manufacturer now.

 

[Nintendesert]

Well add another big chip into the pile for the breakup of Moogle. We'll see how this buyout plays out though.

 

[ponyo]

Everything makes sense now. Nortel was just the pawn. The real target was Motorola. I think this a smart buy for Google even with the premium.

I'm interested in the future GoogleTV integration with the cable topset boxes. GoogleTV just became relevant again.

So when is Microsoft buying Nokia?

 

[alent1234]

Google is now an end to end cloud computing platform. They already had the cloud side, now they have mobile devices, PCs, and television set top boxes. Whether Samsungs and HTC's are still selling Android phones themselves is pretty irrelevant to the picture. If Samsung and HTC get sued out of Android business, Google could have them bid against each other to supply phones under the Motorola/Google brand as ODMs, where Google will be the one bringing the patents, and reaping the rewards. The risk before was that all the manufacturers would bail on Android, now that is no longer a possibility, since Google has it's own manufacturer now.

A successful venture capitalist on google plus said that once all tv's are Internet connected then they will upload the metrics of what people watch. Supposedly no one really believes Nielsen data. Once the real data comes in everyone will see how little people watch tv and ad rates will drop. And there seems to be some push to make tv all ip based.

The motorola set top business will be either a big success or complete failure

 

[gotsmack]

Everything I read today said that Google is very cognizant that phone hardware is outside of their core competency and that Motorola would continue to be run as an entirely separate company. One item pointed out was that they would still have to bid and compete for the annual Nexus partnership.

I get that they might see some preference in reality, but it's not like Google is designing the hardware. If they don't like what Moto's team is putting out, they won't cripple the Nexus offering. That's not the right move for Google shareholders.

Thats what they say now, but after a while some business guy is going to be like "Android share is growing at XX%, why is Moto share of Android devices only growing at X%, someone is eating our lunch, lets fix this" This is a normal business evaluation and response.

Also if Google doesn't like something Motorola is doing, they can make Motorola change course. For example (my dream for this situation), someone at the top might hate MotoBlur and decide that from now on MotoBlur will be an add on skin that can be downloaded and applied to their system if customers so choose, but the devices come with stock andorid out of box. Maybe someone high up in Google will dictate that from now on Motorola will only have UNlocked bootloaders, like HTC.

 

[Compddd]

I hope this means more WP7 stuff, I want a WP7 phone!

 

[Bateluer]

I want to see where this goes, lots of positive potential.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Everything makes sense now. Nortel was just the pawn. The real target was Motorola. I think this a smart buy for Google even with the premium.

I'm interested in the future GoogleTV integration with the cable topset boxes. GoogleTV just became relevant again.

So when is Microsoft buying Nokia?

http://parislemon.com/post/8964980217/rope-a-dope-indeed

 

[cronos]

http://parislemon.com/post/8964980217/rope-a-dope-indeed

LOL these bloggers are really just being fanboys and trying hard to troll each other. One person speculate about one thing, the other speculate about exactly the opposite, throwing supposedly big names/connection they have as credentials, showing how wrong the first person is. Heh.

It's pretty much exactly like the bitching happening here in the forums about Apple vs. Android or ATI vs. Nvidia, etc. Just in a different media and maybe a little larger in scale

 

[dougp]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/15/googles-moto-mobility-deal-may-have-had-microsoft-roots-comes/

Maybe I'm right - other OEMs have something to fear if this turns out to be true.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Googarola, lol

 

[runawayprisoner]

http://gigaom.com/mobile/will-hardware-makers-trust-google-after-motorola-buy/

Basically long version of this:

Motorola seems to get special treatment from Google with regards to Android, how will the other manufacturers feel about this when they have to wait for source codes and such to be released and so on?

 

[akugami]

LOL these bloggers are really just being fanboys and trying hard to troll each other. One person speculate about one thing, the other speculate about exactly the opposite, throwing supposedly big names/connection they have as credentials, showing how wrong the first person is. Heh.

It's pretty much exactly like the bitching happening here in the forums about Apple vs. Android or ATI vs. Nvidia, etc. Just in a different media and maybe a little larger in scale

I agree, but I'd also have to say the blog article Pliablemoose linked to has a valid point. Anyone who thinks Google didn't want to win the Nortel patents is living in Lala Land.

The argument is Google tricked MS, Apple, and others into buying the Nortel patents so they can pay $12 billion to acquire patents instead of $2-3 billion. They only paid about 60% over the last closing stock price (prior to the Google purchase announcement). A steal I tell ya.

It all makes sense now. Intel also teamed up with Google (bidding for the Nortel patents) for shits and giggles. Google also complained to the government to stick it to Apple & MS as a joke. Their CLO posted what amounts to whining publicly for fun. Apple, MS, and Google will be laughing about this at the yearly get together at Job's place for years.

If you believe that, I got ocean front property in Nevada to sell you.

With all that said, I think if Google had to spend money to help defend Android, this was as good as it gets after losing the Nortel patents. This has the potential to really give Android a boost depending on the outcome of the Moto vs Apple and Moto vs MS suits.

 

[J-Money]

Anyone know if Symbol is part of Motorola Mobility?