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

Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 265 posts

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#61

Post by loki540 »

myko wrote: post #43
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year off and the name is different, but Chromecast has redefined the way I think about 'Smart TVs' and HTPCs. Google's long game still looks good in this area, IMO.

Yeah, Chromecast is pretty amazing. I bought one and everyone in my family who has been over to see it has purchased one as well.

Just curious - what do you usually use Chromecast for? I got it specifically to stream Youtube on my TV, and found that there was usually a > 1 second lag between the image on the TV and the sound on the TV. This has given me a pretty negative view of Chromecast - basically that it's just good for streaming visual-only things like slideshows etc. Have you found this not to be the case?

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#62

Post by berberous »

maxerickson wrote: post #33
mediaman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article suggests that 10,000 patents are part of the deal. I'm not sure if that's the same number as were originally purchased, but I have to think it's the lion's share of them.

I see 'certain patents'. I don't see a reason to read a number out of that.

It's from China Daily: "The acquisition, worth at least $2 billion, will include more than 10,000 mobile communications patents currently held by the United States company, according to a person familiar with the matter." [1]

Wikipedia said of the original Google purchase: "Motorola Mobility has 17,000 patents with 7,500 more patents pending."

[1] http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2014-01/30/content_17265533.htm

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#63

Post by magicalist »

jonathannorris wrote: post #49
ben1040 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google shredded 85% of the $13bn paid for Motorola http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/17/arris-closes-deal-to-buy-... To be fair they got $2.2bn of it back by selling off Motorola's cable STB and modem business.

I believe Motorola also had $3B in cash when acquired.

Yeah, I'm not sure how straightforward it all was, but according to this article:

> At $12.5B, Motorola is Google’s largest acquisition to date. Google paid $40 / share in cash, but received ~$11 / share in cash and $8 / share in deferred tax assets. Thus the value ascribed to operations + patents was about $21 / share, or $6.3B, reflecting a multiple of ~0.5x sales and 12x EBITDA. Now adjusting this further for the $2.35B total consideration Google is expected to receive for the Motorola Home business, we get a purchase price of just under $4B for Motorola's handset business and patent portfolio (17K patents and 7.5K patent applications).

http://www.zdnet.com/googles-motorola-purchase-was-it-worth-...

So it seems like it would end up being $1 billion for a bunch of patents. The whole process has been rather weird, in the end.

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#64

Post by psbp »

codelap wrote: post #22

I 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.

Closer to $7 billion. They have made $5 billion together with the set top box acquisition.

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#65

Post by ceejayoz »

lotso wrote: post #13
mediaman wrote: post #7

Huge 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

> And Google TV. Let's not forget that huge failure.

Not to mention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_Q

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#66

Post by objclxt »

CompleteMoron wrote: post #38
mediaman wrote: post #7

Huge 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…

I would wager that it means a ton of these patents arent useful anymore.. the stuff coming out of google X will pretty much make these old patents kinda uselesss. Even the very nature of the cell phone is rapidly changing and Google Glass is a useless halfstep with contacts coming right around the corner which will be the real hardware killer.

...a lot of Motorola's patents are related to underlying voice and networking technologies. Unless Google X is proposing to come out with a replacement for GSM (...and it's not) that stuff isn't changing.

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#67

Post by graving »

mediaman wrote: post #7

Huge 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…

This graph[1] tells some of the story, but the bigger story was they failed to capitalize on the patents, and even got fined by a jury for trying to abuse FRAND patents on WiFi and H.264.

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52605103ecad0479335...

http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9242129/Microsoft_wins_...

Edit: The timing is very interesting too. Google reports its quarterly earnings tomorrow, and was known to have spent about $500M on advertizing the Moto X which hasn't been selling well and which must have dragged Google's earnings down. Releasing this news now will help calm investors tomorrow. Also, can't imagine that Lenovo will continue subsidizing the Moto X/Moto G, so I expect prices to go up once the acquisition completes.

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#68

Post by absherwin »

mediaman wrote: post #7

Huge 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…

They shredded closer to a sixth of the initial price less whatever IP benefit they received.

Motorola had ~$3B in cash when acquired. Google previously sold their set-top box unit for $2.35B and realized about $1.7B in tax benefits from previous losses. However since acquiring it has taken $1.038B in losses, which is $0.67B post-tax. There will be another write down for the lost goodwill less the value of the remaining IP that should be worth very approximately $1B. So including the $3B from Lenovo, they recouped approximately $10.4B of the initial $12.5B purchase price.

Edit: Previous version excluded cash.

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#69

Post by [deleted] »

mediaman wrote: post #7

Huge 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…

[deleted]

Re: Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division

#70

Post by secabeen »

loki540 wrote: post #61
myko wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Chromecast is pretty amazing. I bought one and everyone in my family who has been over to see it has purchased one as well.

Just curious - what do you usually use Chromecast for? I got it specifically to stream Youtube on my TV, and found that there was usually a > 1 second lag between the image on the TV and the sound on the TV. This has given me a pretty negative view of Chromecast - basically that it's just good for streaming visual-only things like slideshows etc. Have you found this not to be the case?

Definitely not. Since Chromecast is sending audio and video over the same connection (HDMI), this is likely a problem with your TV or the like. Do you have a complicated Home Theater setup?
Post reply on HN