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China Approves Google Motorola Mobility Merger
symbolset writes "CNET is reporting that China has approved Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Previously approved by regulatory authorities in the U.S. and Europe, China was the last holdout. The deal will now reportedly close 'within days.'" I wonder what conditions Google may have faced from the regulators, and whether they include any exceptions to the "don't be evil" guideline.
Certainly not any more (or less) evil than the U.S. as of late.
Seriously, just because they don't see some things eye to eye with your U.S.-centric P.O.V. doesn't make them automatically evil.
It used to be you just had to get FTC approval for a merger.
Then the EU started to throw its weight around and got in on the act.
So now, China has to approve global mergers, too?
Is there a full list of approval authorities?
Do Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa (4 of the BRICS) also need to approve? All 200 or so countries of the world?
Or is it a game of chicken where if a podunk country says "You can't merge without our permission", a company will just say "Bye," but they can't say the same for huge markets?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
From the update to the article, it is stated that Google must keep android free and open for at least the next 5 years.
Not a bad condition if you ask me.
Then a complete deadlock of every smartphone. Then finally politicians who own these phones can reform the patent system and see how absurd it is! ... at least I can hope since MS is banning all HTC andriod phones from the US.
Submitter here. Google left China's search engine market because China wanted them to enforce censorship and disclose identifying information for posters - and that violated their "do no evil" motto. The CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt wanted to do it. Larry page wanted to do it. But Sergey Brin took a position something like (not a literal quote) "then you'll do it without me because I'm not going there. Dad was a Russian political dissident and I might have grown up in a Gulag and you all might not have met me but for his escape to freedom. I won't be involved in anything like depriving others of freedom of speech." I imagine there were several incidences of the phrase "fuck you" involved too, but that might just be my imagination.
The hacking thing was a secondary issue, but might have been reason enough in its own right. Regardless, Google faced the threat and didn't cross the rubicon. They didn't cave. That should have submarined this Motorola Mobility deal, but it didn't. Google serves the China search market from Taiwan now, where these requirements don't apply - but the Great Firewall blocks some Chinese citizens from getting the best use of their Google, but at least Google isn't participating in it.
The fight over this is probably why Schmidt isn't the CEO any more. And that's OK. For babysitting Larry and Sergey for a few years he got $10 billion, which makes him the highest paid babysitter of all time.
That "I wonder" stuff was added by timothy, as is his right as an editor. The submission is the stuff in the blockquote.
The condition added by China's regulators is the same as other governments required: Android has to stay open - which Google intended anyway.
I'm actually pretty surprised that China approved this deal. I thought Google was going to have to take Motorola Mobility without their China operations - and that they would. Somewhere in China is a Google employee who earned a really large bonus. He made it rain.
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This is nothing new.
Larger companies, like Coca-Cola, Intel, etc. still wrestle themselves into presence in the world.
For babysitting Larry and Sergey for a few years he got $10 billion, which makes him the highest paid babysitter of all time.
How is this not evil?
How is this evil? Google's board obviously agreed on Eric Schmidt's compensation, and he got paid accordingly. If you don't like it, don't use Google - churn out your AGPL3 based search service and use it.
China is trying to join the present age gracefully without a painful civil war or excessive domestic violence. That's a difficult course, and I wish them all the luck in the world in that goal. I'm not a big fan of how they're managing the transition shock - they're certainly not doing it how I would do it. But I'm not looking at it from the party's point of view and they know their people better than I do. They have no successful historical guide for how this is done peacefully, because it's never been done peacefully in the history of Man. In this transition always before there has always been a great deal of blood spilled.
I'm sure to get some haters over this one. I don't hate the China government, and especially not their people - and I think most people in the world feel this way. They have a different view and diverse views are valuable. I think China's government is also regretful of the measures they feel they must impose to moderate the migration to the modern world - but that a reckless unrestrained adoption of openness might drive their people to anarchy. So they must loosen the ties that bind gradually so that their people can explore freedom without being harmed too much by it.
That doesn't excuse any of the most egregious violations of human rights we've heard of lately by any means. China is a different country, and at over a billion souls more diverse in operations than any we know. Of course there are going to be odd corners where bad things happen outside the general scheme, as there are at Guantanamo. The greater goal doesn't make these things right to do, and diminishes the effort overall - but there are always outlier individuals who implement beyond their remit thinking their actions serve the greater goal when they don't.
I believe that the average Chinese citizen wants what I want: to provide for himself and his family. And I believe that the Chinese government wants what my government wants: to preserve their citizens' standard of living, to protect their borders, to move progress forward. We are all the same in this regard.
Whether our governments reconcile or not, I hope our citizens can embrace each other in brotherhood, recognizing that we all suffer from the human condition - including being led by fools.
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This wasn't Larry Page and Sergey Brin's idea. The bankers who backed the IPO insisted on a babysitter with experience in running a multinational corporation, and they got one. That it cost so much wasn't because they offered it but because he had the wisdom to insist on stock options rather than straight pay. He might have got nothing at all if Google had tanked right after. He was also smart enough to let them do their thing. Instead of tanking Google shares flew to the moon, and he became wealthy beyond the dreams of Midas - though he was beyond worring about paying the rent even beforehand.
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BTW: Eric Schmidts $10 billion didn't cost Google anything at all. So it was a sweet deal for Google too.
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As annoying as your shilling is, I'm a bit saddened to see that you aren't even trying these days.
The China hold out was purely personal, as such all that was required was an individual arrangement. Google was stuck between a rock and a hardplace, either pay and be evil or be screwed by M$ being evil.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You have to know how China or any other communist country really works. Bribery is the number one means that can get you through almost everywhere. No questions asked. Even in post-communist countries there are some deeply nested schemes to make things work. I do NOT want to imagine the sums of money needed in China to approve this kind of a big business deal.
Your post is suffering from Aphasia, which is indicative of a stroke. If you can still read this I would recommend that you dial 911 and ask for help.
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Who paid it then, the tooth fairy?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Google printed options of no value, and the market made them into $10 B on its own. But Google didn't pay. That money didn't come out of Google's revenues.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYN2wSrLpjlkw315NjrmHTeNEq2Q?docId=adfa482ccdf348208c46b2181a3d5337
>Google's Android software powers more than 250 million mobile devices made by a variety of manufacturers, including Motorola Mobility. The latest versions must be made available free of charge for the next five years, apparently in response to concerns that competition could be hurt if Google gives updated versions to Motorola Mobility and withholds them from others. Google doesn't currently charge for Android.
The availability of Android would have impacts on China's manufacturer, so there is no surprise of seeing this condition attached.
Those sound like factual statements to me, that you did not bother rebutting.
Different AC, but agree that Google is a bunch of arrogant assholes.
Third AC here. You sound like a whiney little bitch.
No, the value came out of the pockets of other shareholders since their shares are diluted by the value of his created shares
To whom?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
GP is at +4 insightful. Go figure.
Tosh. The pie is a finite size. To make an extra slice you have to cut down somebody else's.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
China never demanded Google to deviate from "do no evil." It only demanded that it uses China's definition of "evil".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It's a shame China couldn't have demanded that Google force Motorola unlock their bootloaders worldwide as a condition of approval. My Photon is for sale on eBay right now because their 2.3.5 update *really* locked the bootloader once and for all, and made the phone impossible to root for at least a few days.
I refuse to be like Motorola's battered spouse any longer. I will not graciously thank them for giving me a thin, damp, moldy blanket to help keep warm when they make me sleep naked on the dungeon's cold concrete floor.
Damn you, Motorola, and your kernel's blighted "ondemand" governor. I want "interactive", and refuse to suffer with lockscreen lag for one fscking day more. When I hit the power button or touch the screen, I want the phone at 100% CPU speed... NOW. I'm tired of having to "exercise" the phone by flipping the notification tray open and closed, over and over again, to keep the phone from slowing down and making me feel like I'm try to slog through wet concrete for 30 seconds while it runs at 200MHz. I didn't buy a dualcore 1-GHz phone so it could run more slowly than my ancient Hero that's overclocked and locked to 711MHz.
If I had a Trebuchet, I'd gather the media, then wheel it over to your parking lot and use it to hurl that now-lobotomized piece of locked-down junk through one of your office windows... after Father Marilyn Manson performs the last rites, while a half-dozen drag queen nuns sing spirituals about the chariot in the sky while the phone sails over your parking lot and across the great Rainbow Bridge over the River Styx into the welcoming arms of Jay Miner, Jon Postel, and Dennis Ritchie -- one of whom will have the private key needed to unlock its soul and allow it finally feel the healing kiss of CM9.
With God, Xenu, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my witnesses, I will never, *ever* buy another Motorola phone with a locked bootloader.
If China wants Google to ensure that Android stays open the best thing they could do would be to BUY ORACLE.
I'm sure that China could afford it, maybe have to call in some of the debt that the USA owes them...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
The best we can do for the previously open projects acquired with Sun by Oracle is to fork them. Oracle is run by Larry Ellison. Larry Ellison is not in the "giving stuff away" business.
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