EU and US Approve Google-Motorola Deal

angry tapir writes "European regulators have given Google the green light to take over Motorola Mobility. The U.S. $12.5 billion deal faced strong opposition from open source and consumer rights advocates, including Consumer Watchdog, but the European Commission announced on Monday that the acquisition could go ahead, without conditions." Later in the day the DOJ announced an end to its investigation, greenlighting the acquisition in the U.S. as well.

Comments

Let the lawsuits begin!

[kilodelta]

And with Motorola Mobility it seems Google gets a nice little patent war chest. I can't wait until they sue Apple out of existence to be honest.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[lucm]

Yes, because its rational for you to passionately love one company (an ad network)

I stopped reading after "ad network" because someone who describes Google as such is either biased against Google or for Apple, which makes your comment no more rational than the first post.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[symbolset]

They won't be suing Apple, nor Microsoft out of existence. But at least they've finally brought their gun to the OK Corral. They can probably achieve a Mexican standoff.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple isn't "an electronics maker". They design electronics, buy a lot of Samsung components and have poor Chinese people work 18 hours a day to assemble them.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[devleopard]

You're an idiot if you think this was a acquisition meant to destroy Apple. It's quite the opposite: it's a defensive acquisition. It's a bunch of Cold War maneuvering: you fire, I fire. Any lawsuit big enough to destroy Apple (doing my best to type that without laughing) would surely come at the hands of Apple firing everything they have. Hopefully this will just keep everyone's lawyers at bay, and everyone can focus on making cool stuff.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[kelemvor4]

Apple isn't "an electronics maker". They design electronics, buy a lot of Samsung components and have poor Chinese people work 18 hours a day to assemble them.

Importers and purveyors of Chinese electronics seems like a good description to me.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[ThePeices]

The iPhone is a good phone, so are a few Android phones.

The fanbois show their true colours when they cannot accept any other phone or brand is as good as theirs.
They also do when they go on and on and on about how crap all the other phones are and how wonderful theirs is.

Reality, as always, is usually smack down the middle.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[Beeftopia]

"If you can persuade your customer to tattoo your name on their chest, they probably will not switch brands."

-- An Indiana University professor on Harley Davidson owners

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

And with Motorola Mobility it seems Google gets a nice little patent war chest. I can't wait until they sue Apple out of existence to be honest.

I think this move by google is an excellent one from a business perspective because they did indeed buy Moto Mobility for the patents and this will now allow them to have real leverage and ownership of key patents that are used on mobile telephony.

It will also ensure that android continues to be actively developed.

People need to start treating these companies a bit more fairly, a lot is a stake and the more competition there is, the more innovation there is and the better (i.e. lower) prices we pay as consumers.

IMHO if apple had their way, everyone would have an iphone, ipad, imac, itunes account, icloud storage and apple undies to go with it. That would lead to them winding back on innovation and leave us with no other choices....a very boring world to live in. They would also charge way more for their over prices products then they do as is in that scenario.

Lets also be honest here and admit that apple does not play real fair at the manufacturing/patent levels with other companies, competitors and also how they handle production by way of out sourcing it. IN fact they royally screw us over on pricing here in Australia so I am all for anything that forces them to give us the end user a fairer deal and better value for our hard earned dollars.

Now before anyone says i am anti this or that, I have an apple macbook pro and I also use MS products extensively in my role at work. After 15yrs in the industry i care more for things being fit for purpose then i do for brand names so save me the flame.

peace.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin!

[hairyfeet]

How is THAT insightful mods, seriously? MSFT may have other revenue but the majority comes from Windows and Office so it would be logical to call them an OS and Office software company, yes? Apple gets most of its money from consumer devices so they can be called a consumer devices company, following?

Show me where Google makes more than a tiny pittance on ANYTHING bsides ads, lets hear it. Not android because they are product dumping that to the tune of a billion bucks in development a year, not ChromeOS, again they are dumping it gratis, Chrome? nope, hmmm...how are they able to dump billions in software for absolutely no money? Are they making the money from rainbows and puppy farts?

That would be ADS paying those billions PLUS billions in revenues AND profits friend. You can gussy it up all you want, pretend it don't exist all you please, but if you shut down Google's ad business they would be gone in less than a year. Now what would that make Google, could it be, oh I don't know...an AD company perhaps?

Seriously I don't know when all the damned corporate cheerleading started but when someone gets a +4 just for going "Nuh uh, you must be teh shill for not loving teh googles!" this place is getting seriously fucked up. its a fucking company okay, do you wear Google PJs too? Its like the old Mel Brooks bit "All go to hell except cave 76!" because its nothing but pointless flag waving and perception bubbles all around. None of the above companies are your pal, none of them frankly give a flying fuck about you okay? And if any of the big three could see their profits go up by 15% by throwing you in a cage with a horny silverback you'd be getting gorilla loving before you could say "Do no evil!". so just cut the crap okay? We're supposed to be geeks not sheep.

As for TFA I don't if this could be considered a good thing or a bad thing for Google. Google obviously thinks its a good thing but what company is gonna want to use Android on a phone if they have to compete with the OS developer's phone? While this will give Google an Apple style solution, with the ability to integrate hardware and software nicely which looks to be the way the other guys are gonna all do it, MSFT and Nokia, Apple making their own, and now Google with Motorola, what company is gonna want to run android when it will be inferior to the Google Phone? On a positive note maybe this will breathe new life into WebOS as all the OEMs left out in the cold by this deal can simply customize it to their hardware and like Android is gratis.

Thank heavens

[drhodesmumby]

Hopefully this will give Apple and Microsoft reason to pause for thought on its lawsuits against the Android ecosystem.

I'm getting tired of reading about a new assault every week; 17,000 patents should even things out enough to force the big players to negotiate and co-operate (assuming of course that Apple won't try to continue the Jobs dream of killing competition entirely...).

Also, I'll love seeing any hardware to come out of this.

Apple might be the ultimate loser

[Taco Cowboy]

With Google standing behind Motorola and Microsoft standing behind Nokia, Apple will be facing tough challenges, both in marketplace and in courtrooms around the world

Re:Apple might be the ultimate loser

[Daniel Phillips]

With Google standing behind Motorola and Microsoft standing behind Nokia...

Interesting analogy. Please allow me to extend it a little, if you will. "Google standing behind Motorola, owning it, and Microsoft standing behind Nokia with a garrot around its skinny corporate neck..."

Google really does hold back the evil.

[pecosdave]

They're by no means perfect, but when compared to other companies their size Google does proportionately less evil.

I'm hoping their search engine finds the "nuclear" patent holed up somewhere in Motorola's recently acquired portfolio that allows them to put an end to the other companies sue everyone else wars between Apple, Samsung and every other manufacturer out there. The "one patent to trump them all" wielded by Google that could put everyone else in a hurt locker unless they calm down and agree to play nice would be a dream and allow honest development and competition to resume.

I'm dreaming I know. I would like wielding of patents as a weapon to go away, but hopefully a big one in the rights hands could fix some issues.

Link from Ars (WTF???)

[elashish14]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/regulators-to-google-you-can-buy-motorola-but-we-still-dont-trust-you.ars

FTA:

But regulators on both sides of the pond went out of their way to warn Google not to abuse the patents, with the Justice Department comparing Google's patent statements unfavorably with what Justice views as more responsible statements made by Apple and Microsoft.

The fuck are they smoking? Am I missing something gigantic staring at me in the face? How is Google's record of 'patent statements' remotely close to being worse than those of Apple and Microsoft? Does the US DOJ actually look favorably down on Apple continuous patent 'I'll sue you out of business' hissy-fits? When has Google ever abused a patent? Has Google ever even attacked another company with patents?

In any case, what I'd love to see is for Google to create a pool with these patents (haven't they done this already?) where anyone who enters the pool consents to agree not to sue others in the same pool. It wouldn't do much to stop patent trolls though, unless they find a way to kick out members who support them. Am I dreaming? Or should a legitimately don't-be-evil company do this?

Re:Link from Ars (WTF???)

[makomk]

The main result of how the EU - and now apparently the US - are interpreting FRAND and standards seems to be that companies who've spent a fortune on actual R&D to make mobile networks and smartphones actually possible will find that they aren't actually allowed to sell phones using the technology they developed because someone else has got a huge thicket of patents on daft things like detecting phone numbers in messages and offering to call them. Worse still, they'll have to offer up the technology they developed to the company driving them out of business at a knock-down price.

There's a reason why mobile phone companies have insisted on comprehensive cross-licensing deals in the past. What the EU is doing is effectively favoring crap patents over ones based on actual, fundamental R&D that everyone benefits from. Do you think there'll be any companies willing to help develop the next-generation 4G and 5G standards after this, if they won't actually be able to make any money from it?

FUD?

[binarstu]

According to the linked articles in the post, consumer advocates (or, more accurately, at least one consumer advocate that is associated with Microsoft) are opposed to this move because it gives Google "unprecedented dominance" in the mobile market.

None of the linked articles give any evidence of "strong opposition from open source... advocates". Can anyone explain or give examples of this supposed "strong opposition"? As is, this appears to be a mostly invented controversy.

Re:Opposition from open source?

[c0lo]

Seriously, guys, anyone that can provide some links that shows "strong opposition from open source"?

Re:Opposition from open source?

[stephanruby]

Correct me I'm wrong, as I'm not in the know, but wouldn't this be a plus for rom development on motorola droid phones?

It could.

With HTC officially unlocking its bootloaders and Samsung officially hiring the Cyanogen guy (and then encouraging him to continue doing his custom rom development on the side -- with a healthy salary and no strings attached), custom Android rom development is looking very promising all around.

Re:That's just a fad

[aristotle-dude]

Apple has the most brand loyal customers on the planet

It's just a fad

Just like any other fads, this "Apple frenzy fad" will become stale, people will lose interest in Apple, once a new-kid-in-town with new fangle tricks appears

I've heard that mantra so many times before when the iMac came out, when the iPod came out, when the iPhone came out, when the iPod touch came out and when the iPad 1 came out. Are you seeing a pattern here? I keep on seeing people on slashdot predicting the demise of Apple year after year.