Balls • Hacker News Board

Re: Balls

#61

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 9:43 AM UTC

guywithabike wrote: post #46

recoiledsnake wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Gruber, Asymco, et al. have been taken aback by Android's year over year ascendancy. They were certainly predicting gloom and doom of Android, so patents are their last resort to reign in Android now. See units and marketshare of Android for 2nd quarter 2010 vs. 2011. http://wmpoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image66.pn... Asymco failing at analysis and predictions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

Units and market share don't mean much if your margins are razor thin (or, worse, nonexistent).

People only believe that to be true because Asymco keeps repeating it and getting quoted widely by people like Gruber in the Apple echo-chamber (and because they desperately want it to be true).

A key diversionary tactic Asymco uses is to combine dumbphone and smartphone sales, so companies like Samsung that are transitioning customers from genuinely low-margin, low-cost, end-of-lifecycle products onto relatively much higher margin Android phones are presented as if they are not doing very well, when in fact they have two seperate business: a rapidly growing and profitable Android business, and a break-even or loss-making dumbphone business that they're winding down.

Notice how much "better" HTC is doing in his stats (despite regular doom'n'gloom predictions from him about them in the last year) because they don't have a dumbphone business.

Re: Balls

#62

Post by smh » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 9:57 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #4

All I can think about is that Microsoft/Apple blew billions on patents which forced Google to blow billions more to block their move. Think how much real innovation $20 billion could have created if it weren't for the shitty patent system.

That implicitly assumes these patents are mostly forky-spoony stuff. What if they represent real innovation? In that case the system is working exactly as intended; investors are getting a return on R&D.

Re: Balls

#63

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:02 AM UTC

divtxt wrote: post #35

divtxt wrote: post #26

The problem with Gruber is that he'll write a fair analysis only as long as the fair analysis favors Apple. This means we won't get a fair analysis from him on things like the patent war and app store high-handedness. Sometimes he'll do a great piece. Sometimes you have to sift carefully for the bias. Then there are articles like this - insults, lies and condescension: - Lyons has always been an ass, but when did he…

To clarify: a biased Gruber article may actually have valid points. The problem is that Gruber will only include pro-Apple points. For example, note that Gruber does NOT point out how the acquisition will allow Google to do Apple-style seamless hardware/software design. edit: Android -> Google as pointed out by m_eiman below

I sure don't hope that Google bought Motorola for that. It will fail just as all other mergers that look good on paper do that.

You got two big cultures coming from completely different parts of the tech world. There is no way that you will get seamless vertical integration that way.

Re: Balls

#64

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:07 AM UTC

"Motorola — a handset maker with rapidly declining sales" -- Gruber (with a link to an Asymco post, which doesn't actually mention sales figures, only market share)

Last quarter they sold 4.4 million smartphones, up from 2.7 million the same quarter last year. (If you're more interested in market share as depicted by Asymco's graph then they're growing slightly at around 5% of the smartphone market, compared with say Apple which is growing slightly at around 15%, or Samsung which has gained 15% in the last year to just under 20%.)

Even if you like to play the Asymco game of including dumbphones that don't run Android to make Android look bad, they still increased total phone sales year-on-year, to 11 million, meaning their increased Android sales replaced a smaller number of lost dumbphone sales.

Re: Balls

#65

Post by Padraig » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:42 AM UTC

The article makes a great case that Motorola is the real winner.

The buyout can't have been solely for the patents, because Motorola are losing patent battles. It's unlikely that it was just to own a phone manufacturer, because why buy a 3rd rate one at a 60% premium? So why? Because Motorola had Google by the balls and could have further fucked Android up for everyone else.

It's a shame how every discussion of a Daring Fireball article here collapses into 'Gruber is a fanboy', but it's particularly frustrating when it's an insightful article like this one. If he's half as bad as some of you make out, it should be easy to argue the points without resorting to attacking the man.

Re: Balls

#66

Post by wazoox » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 11:04 AM UTC

mayanksinghal wrote: post #55

squidbot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most sensible commentary I've seen yet. Fits the "America is pretty much screwed" articles making the rounds these days. It's actually pretty damned depressing that $20 billion dollars was spent on a legal game rather than awesome R&D.

$20 billion? Did I miss a vital piece of news?

$12.5 billions for Moto, $4.5 billions for Nortel, that's actually more like 17 billions.

Re: Balls

#67

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 11:08 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #29

int3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money's not gone, it's mostly just transferred from one party to another -- in this case, from Google to Motorola's shareholders. Of course, many man-hours are wasted in the legal wrangles, but it certainly doesn't add up to $20 billion dollars of lost productivity.

You can say that about practically any transfer payment. The cost of a transfer payment is opportunity cost. If Google invested 20 billion dollars in R&D, we'd have 20 billion dollars of R&D done in addition to someone, somewhere, having that 20 billion dollars to spend again.

[deleted]

Re: Balls

#68

Post by blinkingled » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 11:51 AM UTC

bgentry wrote: post #41

blinkingled wrote: post #19

Gruber claims that Apple and Microsoft probably are feeling great that Google had to shell out $12.5B to acquire a failing company like Motorola along with its 'misguided' management and rapidly declining sales. So what is wrong with that loaded closing statement? Well lots. Firstly he admits the patents part was a good move for Google and the Android platform. He also does math and says they bought 3x Nortel patents…

just FYI, the "Droid" brand is licensed by Verizon, not Motorola. There have been many "Droid" phones, all of them on Verizon and from several different manufacturers.

You're right of course. But even so, Motorola had lot more to do with Droid brand's popularity than any other Android OEM.

Re: Balls

#69

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 11:51 AM UTC

bgentry wrote: post #41

blinkingled wrote: post #19

Gruber claims that Apple and Microsoft probably are feeling great that Google had to shell out $12.5B to acquire a failing company like Motorola along with its 'misguided' management and rapidly declining sales. So what is wrong with that loaded closing statement? Well lots. Firstly he admits the patents part was a good move for Google and the Android platform. He also does math and says they bought 3x Nortel patents…

just FYI, the "Droid" brand is licensed by Verizon, not Motorola. There have been many "Droid" phones, all of them on Verizon and from several different manufacturers.

[deleted]

Re: Balls

#70

Post by oemera » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 11:56 AM UTC

mayanksinghal wrote: post #56

oemera wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not! Google wanted those patents "to save Android from the competitors" and when didn't get them they just said: "Nah, we didn't want them anyway". Are you kidding me? Who on earth would bid such an amount if they didn't want those patents. Also no-one wrote a article about the patents beside Google itself. The ones who didn't get shit. Sorry but if this aren't sour grapes I don't know what is. Edit: I forgot…

This has been stated a lot of times on HN, but anyways :) 1. I think you are mixing deals 2. GOOG accepting MS offer would have been dumb. Google wanted the patents to avoid lawsuits from MS-Apple. Teaming up with them would have meant that these patents are useless against them (I assume that Apple/MS would not have said - okay we team up for now, but you can sue us using these patents later). 3. I am not sure, but…

First of all sorry I wasn't aware that this has been stated a lot here.

I'm not sure if Google is really the hero at this point like other commenters are stating here. Maybe they bought 3 times more patents than MS/Apple but it's not clear to me if all of those are really interesting in this fight.

I have to admit that I just don't like the Google way here. Saying that patent system sucks and and patents are bad but buying more and more patents is just silly don't you think? Plus they said that Nortels weren't worth 4 billion but they bought 3x patents for 12,5 billion. It's just the same ratio isn't it?.

Let's just see how this will end.