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Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
331–340 of 393 posts
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#332Does this include any of the H264 patents that Motorola hold? If so this makes this story even more interesting, the cases for WebM/VP8 would change substantially.
On one hand: http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... "Parties with patents or patent applications determined by MPEG LA’s patent experts to be essential to the H.264/AVC standard (“standard”) so far include Columbia University, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute of Korea (ETRI), France Télécom, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Polycom, Ro…
The problem is knowing which part of Motorola held the patents, if it was mobility, which would seem logical in some ways (encryption of video streams and media) it would be a boon. Microsoft have a big case against Motorola over the license fees for h264.
Plus I assume there's the iDEN patents, which I suspect will have lots in the download/media area. It will certainly keep the wolves from the door.
My big hope is that Google do something altruistic with this, however it's shareholders may have other ideas.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#333To make a broad point without going into details about patent quality: Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent. Motorola: $12.5B / 14,300 patents = $856,164.38 per patent. Plus 6,700 patents pending. Plus a hardware company. There are obviously a lot of other factors, but it seems like a pretty good deal, and maybe a smarter way for Google to go about acquiring patents without having to deal with bidding war…
The other critical factor is whether the acquisition is a cash deal or a share based deal, a share arrangement would be very efficient indeed, hard to find meaningful details of the acquisition.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
> despite Google's insistence that Android is open, I don't think we've seen the Honeycomb source code yet The word "yet" is mildly disingenuous. No one is waiting for them to do that -- google said a while ago that it wouldn't happen, but that they would release the source to Ice Cream Sandwich.
How can Google get away with not publishing GPL-derivative code from the legal point of view?
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Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
> despite Google's insistence that Android is open, I don't think we've seen the Honeycomb source code yet The word "yet" is mildly disingenuous. No one is waiting for them to do that -- google said a while ago that it wouldn't happen, but that they would release the source to Ice Cream Sandwich.
How can Google get away with not publishing GPL-derivative code from the legal point of view?
Heh, you probably didn't intend it that way, but this is totally a "When did you stop beating your wife?" style question.
And yeah, they publish all the GPL-derivatives like the underlying kernel, but not the stuff that makes Android Android.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#336esr has foreseen this: "This morning came the news that Google has agreed to buy Motorola Mobile for $12 billion. I was half-asleep when A&D regular Jay Maynard phoned me with a heads-up, but not surprised for a second; as I told him, I’ve been expecting this for weeks."
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3597
Apparently what counts are the patents:
"make no mistake: this purchase is all about Motorola’s patent portfolio. This is Google telling Apple and Microsoft and Oracle 'You want to play silly-buggers with junk patents? Bring it on; we’ll countersue you into oblivion.'"
esr envisions a rosy future for Android: "now that Google has shown it’s willing to fly cover for Android handset and tablet makers, likely there’ll be more of them signing on. This move will accelerate Android hardware down the price curve."
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#337The Razor is still the favorite among the phones I've owned, and the StarTac is the only phone I ever truly lusted after, but I can't help feeling that this purchase turns Google into just another conglomerate. And without any intent at snark, the first thing this reminded me of was AOL - seven years ago it would have been brilliant, today the looks like a committee decided to take the "nobody ever gets fired for" approach. Google's mobile strategy just seems incoherent.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#338Only part of Motorola, and not generally the part considered the "original". :) Motorola mobility was spun off of the main company in January - I think at the time there was commentary on the stock markets that it was done with the aim to get someone to buy it. So Motorola will exist still - as Motorola Solutions (it is the bigger & more profitable part of the company anyway) and Google get a phone manufacture divisi…
In a few years we will have Motorola vs Nokia under new names, Google vs Microsoft. Apple will still hold strong onto their upper 5%.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#339Holy wait, what?
I guess this means I will be buying a Motorola phone next time. I wasn't very happy with my Droid 2, overall but I do trust Google.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#340If there is one company I trust to not screw this up it's Google and I think they have a good shot at getting this right. I'm sure their partner companies are going to be a bit ansy to start but they all compete on hardware / price anyhow which this doesn't change. A few points that pop to mind: A. They already had to compete with Motorola, so they haven't lost or gained a new competitor. B. They don't pay for Androi…
To add: a) there will be at least 1 company focused on android which will be protected with the cloth that is Google's legal team. b) Google can make Motorola better c) Google can make hardware to go with their software. d) Google can finally make Motorola phones running android open. e) We can finally see what it means for a hardware company to exist with a motto: "Don't be Evil". Sure Google is not perfect, but all…
Given that Samsung and HTC have already embraced openness as a policy having "googarola" on that same team will add even more momentum to it. Even more when you consider that arduino is the basis for android accessories. In the near-term it's almost irrelevant if android were a worse experience and android devices were less capable (I don't think that's the case, which is all the better) because ultimately it's about development momentum and the OODA loop. If the android platform can congeal a larger critical mass of talented hackers and developers and they can get into a tighter and stronger feedback-develop-release cycle on their software and their hardware then they will beat the pants off of any of their competition.