Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 393 posts

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#341

Post by ChuckMcM »

ericd wrote: post #212
podperson wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you're right. But Google has certainly sold it to its Android partners as "we're going to use their patents to defend your crapware-ridden half-assed locked down handsets and then smother the hardware people with this wet pillow": http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/

Wow, those quotes all sound the same... it's almost eerie. We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem. We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem. I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners. We welcome…

And do you think the PR guys asked them for a quote? No they did not. They wrote the quote and then asked the company if they would 'approve' it. (sort of quote by inference)

I was exposed early on to this when a PR person wrote up a quote, attributed it to me, and then ran it through the PR department where I worked who 'signed off' on the release although no one actually asked me if I had made that quote. When I protested they said "Oh it sounded like something you would say, should we seek a retraction?" It was a hell of an introduction to this 'known technique' in the PR world. I told them that in the future they had to clear any quote attributed to me, through me, which they were happy to do.

So my speculation is that the PR guys wrote these quotes, asked the partner's PR firm to approve, and they did, because none of the CEOs/GMs whatever have that flag set in their PR department that says "check with me before you approve something with a quote from me in it."

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#342

Post by ZeroGravitas »

achompas wrote: post #272
mrj wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's the example I'd use. They sunk billions in the first on for little to show for it. Billions fixing broken xboxes in the second one and only recently have begun to gather some steam -- and even then it was helped by Sony's numerous missteps.

"Only recently?" If not for the $1B RROD write-down in 2008, Microsoft would have been profitable then. MS has been making money off Xbox ever since that writedown.

Got a cite for that? I think I saw estimates that the XBox project was still 5-10 Billion in the red at that point. Have they been making profits to even cover the interest they could have earned with that size of investment by leaving it in something low risk?

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#343

Post by teyc »

microtonal wrote: post #13
latch wrote: post #4

63% premium...insanity. This is all about patents, isn't it? Instead of spending $4billion for patents, spend 3x as much, get a huge portfolio (I don't know how large, but it's supposedly quite large)..and a part of a company as well.

Patents are probably part of it. Another motivation may be that Google wants to avoid the Android ecosystem to spiral out of control. Android phones vary widely in quality, both with respect to hardware and software (thanks to vendor 'extensions'). Maybe they are hoping to produce an Android phone under tight control, to set a benchmark for the rest. Also, Apple has shown that piles of cash can be made on good, thoug…

I checked out Motorola's product line up on their website. It isn't very exciting. (I don't live in the US, so I don't know how much brand value there is).

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#344

Post by jsz0 »

The thing I don't understand about this deal is if the patents are as valuable as Google claims why did they only pay (effectively) $9B for them? Motorola hasn't really been on the bleeding edge of cellular technology for about a decade. Going back to 2003 (at least) they've been using Qualcomm radios for example. In more modern times they are assembling someone else's radio, GPU and running someone else's OS. I'm sure they do have some valuable IP but given the low sale price I'm thinking it's getting seriously overstated. In a $150B/year SmartPhone industry that continues to grow how are these super valuable patents only worth $9B?

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#345

Post by lambtron »

intended wrote: post #206
dlikhten wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GOOG is a s/w company and not a manufacturer. The ability to integrate both sides of such different firms is very difficult. This puts both points b), c) and e) off the table. Point f)? I'm not sure, but I really hope that they can do something while looking at exactly how it will play out on a phone. They did try this with the Nexus though, and that was not something which worked out perfectly imho. M&A's have a ten…

i think this will be accretive as $39bn of cash was just sitting there collecting minimal interest and motorola is moderately profitable.

google has a strong management team with a pretty successful bolt-on acquisition history. even though this is one of their largest acquisitions, i have faith in the management team to either sell off the hardware component of the business, or otherwise somehow make this transaction a success.

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#346

Post by rbanffy »

runjake wrote: post #225
rbanffy wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is platform neutral in a way no other can aspire to: it's open-source. What Google did was to gain access to Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio in order to defend HTC and Samsung from Apple and Microsoft. Google will own the company, but it will not become Google Mobility - it'll continue to exist as a separate entity. They will probably manufacture the reference implementations. In order to reassure other…

Portions of Android are open source. I can't go to android.git.kernel.org, download the complete source and compile it into an identical image of what's on my phone. Additionally, vanilla Android on a consumer device is fairly rare. Most are molested with Sense or BLUR or whatever tragic "vendor-added experience" Samsung inflicts. So in reality, most consumer Android phones aren't really that open source at all, holi…

Android is open-source. What is not open-source is Sense or Blur, or the Gmail or Maps clients. You can't assemble the bundle that is preinstalled on your phone just like you can't download the TiVo software and turn your PC into one, even though the little gizmo runs Linux (as does your Panasonic, LG or Sony TVs, all of which run some flavor of Linux).

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#347

Post by ErrantX »

sukuriant wrote: post #303
ldar15 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a "first" Droid, so I'm assuming that was sarcasm.

So do I. It's VERY old now and I'm very excited about the Droid bionic, but when it came out, it was a very nice piece of equipment, probably the best droid with a keyboard for its time, notwithstanding the buttons-falling-off-from-too-much-texting issue.

You know. The interesting thing here is; I had a Droid via work when it came out (and it was a beast). I also got my personal contract iPhone 3GS the same time.

Thew droid felt defunct somewhere in the middle of last year (and thus I upgraded), but my iPhone still feels awesome, even though I know positively that I am holding out an upgrade till iPhone 5 in a few months.

I've never really considered it from that perspective before... but nevertheless interesting. There is possibly something there that Android needs to look into.

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#348

Post by achompas »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #342
achompas wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Only recently?" If not for the $1B RROD write-down in 2008, Microsoft would have been profitable then. MS has been making money off Xbox ever since that writedown.

Got a cite for that? I think I saw estimates that the XBox project was still 5-10 Billion in the red at that point. Have they been making profits to even cover the interest they could have earned with that size of investment by leaving it in something low risk?

No cite for my specific claim, but I found this Engadget article claiming MS's Entertainment & Devices Division (read: Xbox) was $80 million in the black in 2008:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/xbox-goes-profitable-almo...

Note that I got the write-down year wrong--it was 2007.

Post reply on HN