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Google To Acquire Motorola Mobility For $12.5 Bill

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the didn't-see-that-coming dept.

zacharye writes "Google and Motorola Mobility have announced an agreement whereby Google will acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion. The acquisition price equates to $40 per share of Motorola stock, or a premium of 63% over Friday's closing price. The move is considered to be an effort that will better-align Google to compete with Apple's iPhone, which currently owns two-thirds of profits among the world's top-8 smartphone vendors..." That's one way to stop royalty payments.

12 of 578 comments (clear)

  1. is it just me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or did shit just get real? :-)

    1. Re:is it just me by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh yes it can. If the terms for Google's new IP are up for renewal or renegotiation, you can expect cross-licensing deals and all sorts of things protecting Android phones and devices.

      What this doesn't protect against is trolls like Mark Small, Nathan Myhrovld and all those. "Defensive" patents are a useless strategy against trolls since they have nothing to gain by cross-licensing any tech.

      You know, if the incentive for copyrights and patents are to encourage creativity, then it certainly wouldn't hurt anything if the creators were not allowed to sell their intellectual property.

    2. Re:is it just me by nharmon · · Score: 5, Funny

      I dunno, did you just multiply the wave function by its complex conjugate?

    3. Re:is it just me by Lev13than · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Depends on what you think the "shit" is. Some people are saying it's hw/sw integration, and others are all about patent trolling. In reality, this is part of Google's effort to strengthen its position in eCommerce, specifically mobile and POS payments.

      Put an RFID chip in every phone and you instantly get an EMV-compliant card replacement and an EMV-compliant card acceptance point. Forget all that Square magstripe bs - this would be the real thing. Combine it with Google Wallet and you have an end-to-end solution where anyone can make or accept payments via their phone. With Google controlling the hw and the sw they can set the standards. To make it even more interesting, think of what would happen if/when Google buys MasterCard.

      Go ahead with this and you'll have every taxi driver, flea market, convention booth and convenience store in the country with cheap access to payments issuance and acceptance. Now move that model to Africa and the Middle East. The future of mobile isn't handsets - it's payments.

      --
      When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
  2. Didn't see this one coming by Xest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read this on the BBC and I have to admit, I didn't see this one coming!

    At least we know now why Google didn't seem too bothered about winning the Nortel patents. This gives it a serious cell phone patents battle chest, and a manufacturer of decent tablets and handsets to boot.

    The question is, if it's going to be Google owned, will this mean Motorola devices will be opened up as up until now they seemed to be the most locked down Android devices. Judging by the openness of the Nexus One etc. I'd imagine and hope this will be the case!

    1. Re:Didn't see this one coming by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The question is, if it's going to be Google owned, will this mean Motorola devices will be opened up as up until now they seemed to be the most locked down Android devices. Judging by the openness of the Nexus One etc. I'd imagine and hope this will be the case!

      That will be interesting: I suspect that it will tell us whether the locked bootloader nonsense is actually a carrier demand(and, if so, a carrier demand that they want to stick to, or one that they'll bend on with a touch of pressure) or whether it was a 'hardware companies would prefer that software upgrades be accomplished by hardware replacement' problem...

      Obviously Google doesn't want to lose money on their new hardware division; but it seems pretty unlike them(and poor strategy in the face of Apple's relentless hardware/software integration) to play nickel-and-dime software lock upgrade drive games to eke out a few extra handset sales at the expense of customer satisfaction and overall success of Android and the various web services that Google actually makes their money on.

      On the other hand, if handset locking is some sort of carrier fetish(that they are only willing to make limited exceptions to, for the occasional flagship device), we might not see much change. Google's attempts to crack the carriers through direct sales have been underwhelming in their success so far, and Apple's sales number suggest that Joe Public isn't clamoring for an unlocked bootloader... At least Google is unlikely to cruft up stock Android too heavily.

    2. Re:Didn't see this one coming by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I keep seeing people claim that locked bootloaders are a carrier demand... When this is clearly NOT the case.

      Across ALL carriers, at least in the United States:
      None of the Samsung Galaxy S line have locked bootloaders. (Tab 7s may be mildly locked?) The exception is the Galaxy Tab 10.1 line, which actually has randomly locked bootloaders for the non-carrier-distributed wifi version. (Don't know about the Verizon LTE variant). Even then, the bootloader locking is fairly minimal. The closest to "bootloader locking" I've seen in a Samsung Android phone is locking out flashing alternate bootloaders (Infuse 4G), but never a bootloader that locked out flashing any kernel or userland you wanted.
      A small number of HTCs came out locked in early 2011 - HTC quickly reversed this decision after user outcry. The locked phones were distributed across multiple carriers.
      Nearly all Motorola Android phones are locked down, regardless of carrier.

      Motorola may claim it's the carrier - but if you look at the trends across carriers vs. trends across manufacturers, the trend CLEARLY follows the manufacturer and not the carrier.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    3. Re:Didn't see this one coming by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I bet other Android manufacturers are even more worried, now that Google owns their own hardware too. Suddenly all the Android manufacturers are using a competitors product and then trying to fight against them too. This is also why Nokia's stock price is rising up. It's bad times for those other Android vendors, and I think they're already looking at something else than Android.

      I'm pretty sure Google would be aware of that concern; they've already stated that it will remain as a separate business, and I expect that's because the last thing they want to do is be seen to be competing with their own partners. I'd guess this purchase was forced by the patent situation and not because Google really wants to get into manufacture.

      Of course they say that; what do you expect? Companies have teams of lawyers and PR professionals whose whole job is to come up with the right things to say.

      The question is - why do you automatically believe it? I doubt you'd give any other company the same benefit of the doubt. Did you assume Comcast was being completely forthright with everything it said while purchasing NBC?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  3. Reactions from other Android Manufacturers by Arch_Android · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/
    Most seem happy enough.

  4. patent shield by tero · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the Google press release:

    We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to âoeprotect competition and innovation in the open source software communityâ and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Googleâ(TM)s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

    Motorola and Nokia are the two leading patent holders within mobile business, so this is potentially a very good opportunity for Google to use that portfolio as a litigation shield and helping to keep Android (litigation) free.

  5. Re:Not a bad chioce by localman57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This might work out ok then. Because I think Google has some software guys.

  6. Microsoft by akirchhoff · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This will probably force Microsoft to buy Nokia outright. As much as they would like to just collect license fees, they need a vertically integrated platform.