I wonder if it's true that G did buy it in somewhat of a panic due to what was happening with patents at the time, as some have speculated. I dunno how something as protracted as an acquisition can happen as a result of panicking, though.
Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
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Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#22I suspect the patents were proving to be of less value than Google thought. Combine that with Samsung and other big players investigating other OS's for fear of Google pulling a Microsoft with the Surface. Any way I slice it though, it still sounds like a 10+ billion dollar mistake.
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#23I wonder if I should be in a hurry to buy a Moto G now as a test device and secondary phone? I'm not sure how good Lenovo's cell phones are.
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#24Smart move from Google, they remove the possibility of being suspected of favoritism. And I suppose they keep the patents, which is what they were really interested in all along.
Article says it includes "certain patents".
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#25Huge announcement if true, and if this accounts for the entirety of the Motorola purchase that Google made. That means that in less than two years, Google shredded 85% of the $13bn paid for Motorola. At the time, the high price paid was excused for the patents, because the business itself did not generate nearly enough earnings to justify the price. Now, if it is true that the patents are part of the deal (the articl…
> It's also a big statement on Google's ability to succeed in the hardware market, where they've never seemed to be able to gain real success despite their attempts with notebooks and phones. And Google TV. Let's not forget that huge failure. "By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it." -Eric Schmidt
> "By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it."
Still could happen. (checks calendar...) Nevermind, then.
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#26One big experiment by Google to cheaply increase worldwide mobile connectivity and subsequent ad dollars.
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#27Very odd news. Was looking forward to seeing what Google could do with their weight thrown behind hardware.
I'm curious as to what exactly Lenovo is getting out of the deal. I hear good things about the new Motorola phones, but is the midlevel handset business really that attractive a one? I doubt HTC or Sony are feeling particularly good about their exposure to it.
The same thing Lenovo got from buying IBM's PC and now server businesses. Instant inroads into a foreign market. I mean, Lenovo went from a brand no one had ever heard of to the worlds largest PC maker in a decade or so. They're pretty awesome at squeezing money out of low margin businesses and creating some pretty high quality products (their own branded smartphones are pretty awesome looking, wish they sold in Canada).
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#28Huge announcement if true, and if this accounts for the entirety of the Motorola purchase that Google made. That means that in less than two years, Google shredded 85% of the $13bn paid for Motorola. At the time, the high price paid was excused for the patents, because the business itself did not generate nearly enough earnings to justify the price. Now, if it is true that the patents are part of the deal (the articl…
WRT the patents, it depends on the details of the sale, and how/why Google valued them. Speculation was that one reason Google bought Motorola was to keep someone else from getting the patents and being able to use the patents against Google. If that was responsible for a large portion of the valuation, that might still be retained in a sale to Lenovo, depending on how precisely the sale is structured. It's fairly common in patent sales to include terms protecting the seller, so Lenovo would likely not be able to turn around and sue Google with the just-purchased patents. If so, Google would still retain the portion of the patents' value relating to them not being in the hands of someone who can sue Google using them.
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#29Very odd news. Was looking forward to seeing what Google could do with their weight thrown behind hardware.
I'm curious as to what exactly Lenovo is getting out of the deal. I hear good things about the new Motorola phones, but is the midlevel handset business really that attractive a one? I doubt HTC or Sony are feeling particularly good about their exposure to it.
I am guessing market share for mobiles in the US is their first target. It would certainly give them an enormous kick start into the market. It looks like a similar strategy when bought the laptop business from IBM.
Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
#30From the Lenovo perspective, this would be two very large acquisitions in a short span of time. Very interested to see what they do with this...