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Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

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Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#381

Post by kinofcain »

rbanffy wrote: post #377
kinofcain wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am quite sure all the GPL parts of Gingerbread are available. I am also sure Google is not withholding parts of Gingerbread for no reason. I have no knowledge about their reasons to do so, but, considering many if not all 3.x tablets run on Nvidia chips, I'd bet this has some relationship to Nvidia's historic reluctance in supporting open-source. I am also quite sure Google is working on that as it's not in their b…

I'm going to assume you mean Honeycomb.

So you agree then, that Honeycomb is not available, and that google is withholding it for "some reason" (although you just have to look at their own statements, they're withholding it because they don't want OEMs putting it on phones).

How is that "open"?

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#382

Post by achompas »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #370
achompas wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are we looking at cumulative Xbox profits from day one? Generally one is interested in a division's ability to generate positive cash flow, no matter the initial cost, because it's assumed that division will generate said cash flow in perpetuity.

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#385

Post by rbanffy »

kinofcain wrote: post #381
rbanffy wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am quite sure all the GPL parts of Gingerbread are available. I am also sure Google is not withholding parts of Gingerbread for no reason. I have no knowledge about their reasons to do so, but, considering many if not all 3.x tablets run on Nvidia chips, I'd bet this has some relationship to Nvidia's historic reluctance in supporting open-source. I am also quite sure Google is working on that as it's not in their b…

I'm going to assume you mean Honeycomb. So you agree then, that Honeycomb is not available, and that google is withholding it for "some reason" (although you just have to look at their own statements, they're withholding it because they don't want OEMs putting it on phones). How is that "open"?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382585,00.asp

"Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites such as widgets, multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization," Google said in an email to PCMag.com. "While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we've decided not to release Honeycomb to open source. We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready."

Meaning it's not ready. (emphasis mine)

I have to agree that, right now, Android has a closed branch (two - HC and whetever's not released) but claiming it's closed-source because it has one branch closed is not quite honest - like claiming MySQL is not open-source because they sell proprietary addons. My phone runs the open-source 2.3.4 version that was assembled by developers who don't work for Google.

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#387

Post by zmonkeyz »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #246
intended wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>GOOG is a s/w company and not a manufacturer. Fanboys used to say the same thing about MS when they were working on the first Xbox, and they came out looking pretty silly for it. The first one was a bit clunky, but the second one, especially with Kinect, is gangbusters. Integrating Motorola won't be as big a problem as you make it out for a company as smart and well funded Google.

Since Rahul Sood joined them i'm hoping he's doing the hardware for the next XBox.

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#388

Post by rmrm »

joebadmo wrote: post #216

To make a broad point without going into details about patent quality: Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent. Motorola: $12.5B / 14,300 patents = $856,164.38 per patent. Plus 6,700 patents pending. Plus a hardware company. There are obviously a lot of other factors, but it seems like a pretty good deal, and maybe a smarter way for Google to go about acquiring patents without having to deal with bidding war…

you need to adjust for the fact that Motorola has 3 bil in cash and some deferred tax benefit of roughly equal amount -- the actual cost to Google is around $7 billion.

Re: Google Buys Motorola For $12.5 Billion

#389

Post by rmrm »

joebadmo wrote: post #216

To make a broad point without going into details about patent quality: Nortel: $4.5B / 6,000 patents = $750k per patent. Motorola: $12.5B / 14,300 patents = $856,164.38 per patent. Plus 6,700 patents pending. Plus a hardware company. There are obviously a lot of other factors, but it seems like a pretty good deal, and maybe a smarter way for Google to go about acquiring patents without having to deal with bidding war…

you could adjust for the fact that Motorola has 3 bil in cash and some deferred tax benefit of roughly equal amount -- the actual cost to Google is around $7 billion.
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