Motorola's Identity Crisis

An anonymous reader writes "An article at the NY Times discusses the awkwardness of Google's recent purchase of Motorola Mobility, an acquisition widely thought to be motivated by Android patent concerns rather than a more straightforward business plan. From the article: 'While industry analysts and insiders say the rationale makes sense, they also say it leaves Motorola in an unusual position. ... Heightening the uncertainty is that the companies involved, both of which declined to comment, are in some ways as different as two technology companies can be. Google makes Internet services and software, thrives on high profit margins and distributes its product using giant data centers. Motorola makes hardware, has modest margins on a good day and moves its products on trucks and airplanes and through brick-and-mortar stores. ... "It's like, thanks for everything you did in the 20th century, but you're being bought by a search engine," said Roger Entner, a telecommunications industry analyst and founder of Recon Analytics, a market research firm. He added, "Nobody ever buys a company and leaves it alone."'"

Comments

But It Could Be An Amazing Mairrage!

[Hardhead_7]

I have a Droid X, and while I constantly curse at the locked bootloader and lack of customization compared to many other Android devices, I've actually found that it consistently gets better reception than my brother's Galaxy S (both on Verizon) and FAR better battery life.

AT the end of the day, the fact is Motorola has been doing great things on the hardware side of Android phones. The more I've used other's phones, the more I've come to realize how good my phone is, despite the hatred for Blur that permeates the Android websites. And Blur sucks, don't get me wrong. It's gotten better than it used to be, but it still isn't great. And while you can hide the UI all you want, the underpinnings are always there mucking things up. But Motorola hardware coupled with Google software? Yes, please! This could turn out amazing. With the vertical integration that Apple enjoys, Motorola/Google might be able to build a phone with the same start-to-finish polish as the iPhone, but much more open. I'm excited to see what will happen.

My guess

[Andy Dodd]

Here's my guess of what happens:
Google buys Moto Mobility for the patents.
Google then spins off MM's hardware division, with a full license to the patents obtained, but with Google retaining ownership and control of the patents

That way Google gets the defensive patent pile without the negatives of competing with their licensees and entering the (less pleasant) hardware business.

Two Reasons

[bhunachchicken]

I see two reasons for Google having bought Motorola.

The first, and the one that everyone is citing most often, is the patent protection that they can now give Android. I must say that I do find it sad that people are so keen to destroy free software. To businesses it is of course a threat, but when you see fanboys and girls jumping and down with glee at the legal actions being brought before the system, I can't help but shake my head. Not everyone wants or can afford to part with huge volumes of cash for an iPhone, a system that is so locked down you might as well be licensing usage of the thing from Apple, rather than own it yourself.

Second, and the one I've seen less talk of, is the ability for Google to have Motorla build them some flagship phones for Android. As much as I love my HTC Desire, there are several things that annoy the hell out of me

1. It runs Android 2.2. There is no easy way to upgrade it to 2.3.4 (or whatever comes out next), without either rooting or doing some other hacking. This needs to be fixed, as the average man on the street can't be stuck with a device for 2+ years because the manufacturer hasn't made enough provisions to allow the Android system to be upgraded (allowing for things such as better performance and better battery life).

2. The dreaded low internal memory issue. Seriously, who thought (and still thinks) that giving the users access to 128MB of internal storage would be enough? Sure, we can shove in an SD card, but if most useful apps refuse to move over, you're basically screwed. I've currently got 11MB free on the internal memory and over 20GB free on my microSD. This is bonkers. Hopefully, a Google phone would have at least 8GB internal and support microSD.

3. Open is both Android's best asset and it's main problem. Manufacturers and service providers not happy with Vanilla Android? Hack ten tons of irremovable shit onto the phone and tie it closely to the internal system so that it can't be removed. I'm not sure everyone out there wants Twitter and Facebook on their phones. But it's there and using up space that should be free to the user to do with as they please. Oh well.

So, here's hoping that Google will have Motorola create some flagship phones that address all the above. That would be the next phone I would buy.