The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen. Begun, the Patent War has!
Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
361–370 of 393 posts
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#362And, sadly, another voice for patent reform is muted...
The patent reform they are fighting for will take years if not decades. This is a good short term move, they can't just sit and watch the Apple/Microsoft patent attack.
As long as they don't get corrupted by their new hoard along the way...
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
"open" would be if that actually got me the latest code.
I may be mistaken, but I believe (and you can check if you want) the last commit on that tree happened 40 hours ago.
You're not mistaken about the commits, but you're mistaken about what it means. That command will clone the 2.3 branch, aka Gingerbread. Honeycomb has been shipping on devices for months now, and Ice Cream is the current development branch.
Even if you want to claim that I shouldn't be able to see the current work in progress in an "open" project, which is debatable, I should at least be able to get the code for the currently released version, which would be Honeycomb.
I can't get access to those unless I'm in Google's Super Best Friends club.
GPL issues notwithstanding, Google is completely within their rights to keep their code away from me. However, it makes their trite definitions of "open" look pretty hollow.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
They still have a feduciary responsibility to the minority stock holders.
Actually, IIRC, there ARE no minority shareholders with voting interest. ALL of it is locked up within the triumvirate (Page, Brin, Schmidt). Whether this gives them any more leeway isn't clear to me, but Google is quite non-standard as far as corporate structure.
There are two classes of stock. The class that Page, Brin, and Schmidt have has ten times as much voting power.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#365ok, 24,500 patents. And - I know it's old-fashioned - how many employees?
Wikipedia says 19,000. I believe most of them will be safe, probably even in Sales, considering how the two companies hardly overlap at all. (unless Larry is really thinking to grab the patents and then chuck everything else to some Taiwanese company)
but my point is: you have a 25,000 people company that wants to simplify its operations, and what do they do? They buy a 19,000 people company.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#366I think this would be one of the biggest bets in Larry's career.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia says 19,000. I believe most of them will be safe, probably even in Sales, considering how the two companies hardly overlap at all. (unless Larry is really thinking to grab the patents and then chuck everything else to some Taiwanese company)
but my point is: you have a 25,000 people company that wants to simplify its operations, and what do they do? They buy a 19,000 people company.
Well, except for android, they can probably keep Motorola separate (as they said), wait for patent wars to stop/calm down, and then resell it. No real integration effort would be required.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#368Earlier 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…
In regards to point e) I'm not sure how "Don't be Evil" applies to a company that makes bomb components and missile guidance systems.
Given what they've done with self driving cars, they could do awesome missiles.
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
"My son is going to have to bid to get the contract to build the new city building, just like anybody else. He will be on equal footing." I won't believe it until I see a regular pattern of Moto not getting picked. That goes against too much human nature.
Well as far as I know, Google search doesn't tweak its algorithm to rank Google owned websites higher. This alone gives them some credibility...
Perhaps not, but they seem perfectly willing to use their search monopoly to help their Android business.
When the original Nexus launched they ran an add on the google.com homepage, right under the search bar, for what? Two weeks?
Can you imagine what that would cost any other manufacturer? I'm really surprised they haven't been called on it yet..
Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Isn't that just profit for that year, not including all of the sunk costs to get started?