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Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

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Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#51

Post by poslathian »

blinkingled wrote: post #45
npalli wrote: post #32

Interesting set of moves by Google. Few observations 1. A lot of people are fixated on the sales prices and the $9.5 Billion “loss”. Contrary to gloating from Apple fans, looks like in the final analysis Google paid about $3 Billion for “majority” of the Motorola Patents. Not a terrible deal. 2. Apart from the patents, one reason for the Motorola purchase was to provide some competition to Samsung. Given Samsung’s do…

>With the Nest and Boston Dynamics purchase, Google has the team and the chance to build the next great hardware/software stack ground up and be well positioned for the big markets in the next decade They are keeping the Motorola Advanced Technology Group as well - the one responsible for project Ara (modular cell phones) and password tattoos.

Do you have a source for this?

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#52

Post by blinkingled »

poslathian wrote: post #51
blinkingled wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>With the Nest and Boston Dynamics purchase, Google has the team and the chance to build the next great hardware/software stack ground up and be well positioned for the big markets in the next decade They are keeping the Motorola Advanced Technology Group as well - the one responsible for project Ara (modular cell phones) and password tattoos.

Do you have a source for this?

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/google-keeps-motorolas-adva...

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#53

Post by pasbesoin »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #30
lispsil wrote: post #13

Damnit, I used plenty of moto G's for android development they were great mainly because you could actually buy unlike Nexus constant shortages. Lenovo like most Chinese corps not friendly to open source I imagine they will replace fastboot with some crippled proprietary junk, and be unfriendly to kernel mods

Really? Thinkpads are the most recommended laptops for running Linux. When I ordered mine, Lenovo even gave me a discount when I told them I didn't want Windows and wanted to run Linux. They even have certified some of their products for Linux... Not sure where you get your info.

A lot of people are unhappy with the their latest laptop models, particularly the Thinkpads. Much of this centers around the physical design changes, but I seem to recall some observations regarding an increasing amount of struggle with UEFI and bootable images and such, as well.

In absolute terms, things may not yet be "awful", but there is a worrying trend, in many minds.

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#56

Post by dclara »

dudus wrote: post #14

This comment on the post summarizes well >> Nicolas Charbonnier Moto total cost $12.5B to Goog in 2011: - $3.2B Moto's 2011 cash - $2.4B Moto's 2011 deferred tax assets - $2.35B Moto's Set-top-box business sold in 2012 - $75M Moto's factories business sold in 2013 (incl 7K factory employees) - $2.91B Moto's Mobility business sold in 2014 Thus Moto's remaining assets including patents, buildings (in Chicago and elsewh…

This looks more clear. They pretty much got everything back except the tax liability payment plus the valuable patents remained. Not a bad deal. And I think it's a positive move to put the hardware design and manufacturing back to the hardware company to compete in that market sector. The only sad thing is Android's future.

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#57

Post by dclara »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #15

Interesting, Google really really really doesn't want to be in the physical goods business, and yet they are buying robot companies. This is the first time I believe a large 'service' company is struggling with businesses in the "goods" side of the economy, we have seen many companies like IBM who started out all 'goods' and have been moving into all 'services'. Pretty good win for China as well.

Don't quite agree with you on that they don't want to be in goods business. They just bought Nest. It depends on Google's overall strategy to occupy the future market. Smart phone will have less margin and too much competitions.

But I agree that either way will not generate good results. Companies have to keep moving anyways.

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#58

Post by blinkingled »

Lot of people are fixated on just the financials of the deal while ignoring the alternatives.

Remember back before Google buying them, Motorola was doing even worse than they do today. In addition, CEO Sanjay Jha was talking about suing other Android OEMs for patents. If Microsoft / Rockstar type arrangement would've ended up bidding for Moto's patent portfolio and optionally phone lineup OR if another Android OEM had bought them outright - it would be a far worse outcome for Google. In the worst case there would be one less Android OEM and yet another patent abusing entity for other Android OEMs to worry. In the best case Moto's patents would be held by single Android OEM without any incentive for them to license those to other OEMs, leaving yet another hole in the patent situation.

So strategically Google came out better off at the expense or 2/3Bn USD. They get to keep the patents, license them as needed, Moto brand continues to exist, Google keeps the Moto R&D group and it levels out the Android OEM market further buy strengthening a player such as Lenovo with their wider market reach. And while they were owning Moto, I think they improved the company by making them focus on smaller number of higher quality/unlocked/up to date phones at an affordable price and distinguishing features.

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#59

Post by dclara »

UncleChis wrote: post #8

May be they need money for the Nest deal (just kidding). Very strange to think of the recent Nest acquisition and this sale! Someone opens my eyes please!

To my understanding, Google will devote their energy to the new market, such as robot and home automation, plus Glass and self-driving car, which is already enough to deal with for a software company. No need to compete in the smart phone market with lower margin any more. Focus is very critical to a company's success and sustaining in business.

Re: Lenovo to acquire Motorola Mobility

#60

Post by shliachtx »

UncleChis wrote: post #8

May be they need money for the Nest deal (just kidding). Very strange to think of the recent Nest acquisition and this sale! Someone opens my eyes please!

It seems that Google isn't interested in being just another hardware/phone manufacturer. They want to make revlutionary and unique products. So they sold Motorola, but kept the R&D division. The same goes for why they bought Nest, are investing Google Glass, etc. - they want to be on the next frontier. Plus, they just built a great Android partner/manufacturer that will (if Lenovo is smart) continue to promote [near] pure Android and the Android ecosystem.
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