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Google Acquires Motorola Mobility

Fingolfin269

Fingolfin269

Lifer
Interesting news to start the week...

http://9to5google.com/2011/08/15/google-acquires-motorola-mobility-for-12-5-billion/

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and LIBERTYVILLE, IL – AUGUST 15, 2011 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.
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From Larry Page's blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/supercharging-android-google-to-acquire.html

I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.
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Motoblur to come as standard on all Android phones! (j/k.... I hope).


Seems like a lot of cash for a very average company. At least their should be a number of Android devices with stock Android.
 
That's HUGE! Motorola can make some great handsets, but they lack funding and keep getting gimped by manufacturers. Google should be able to fix both of those problems.

...::waits for Apple to sue them for something else now..."
 
Holy shit Batman.

Everything has just massively changed in telecom land, and in the Googleplex.

Glad I'm not around Steve Jobs today....

Google will own Moto and supply the rest of the industry with Android for free?

Shit just got very interesting.
 
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Totally unexpected. I would have thought they would buy a wireless company before a phone manufacturer. Next a wireless company? Sprint? They could buy Sprint for slightly more than they paid for Motorola. However, I am thinking not as this lets them hit all cellular companies at once.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this improve Google's IP and patent portfolio situation significantly?
 
zsdersw said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this improve Google's IP and patent portfolio situation significantly?
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Yes, not enough to stop all the patent cases, but it gives them a lot better leverage for the future.

I'm still torn, this was either a brilliant play or the dumbest thing they could have done...

Google Inc, has only bult one piece of hardware, 2 if you count the Nexus One I guess...

Am still trying to wrap my head around this... wow.
 
DivideBYZero said:
Very interesting. They become Hardware & software manufacturers, one of a select few (Apple, RIM & Nokia).
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The other phone manufacturers must be freaking out this morning.

I expected Google & Moto to team up & use the patents to defend Android before Sanjay's recent comments about going after other Android manufacturers for licensing deals.
 
Hum. Actually I think it is probably a good move; though the price might be a bit high. Moto hardware was decent enough but the software was lacking.

Hopefully this will mean the end of locked boot loaders and moto-blur on moto's phones. The one thing they lack is samsung display technology but over all I think the hardware was a bit better than htc and samsung.
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As mentioned above patents is likely a huge motivation for the purchase.
 
Couldn't this also hurt other Android developers? Despite the OS being free, some manufacturers might want to avoid competing with Google's own devices which will probably receive some preferential treatment?
 
This is a good thing for MMI too, since they've been teetering on the edge for a while now. There's a reason why Moto proper had spun off their mobile division into a separate entity, and that reason was to entertain suitors to offload what was a dying division.
 
For Android to continue to dominate the sales figures, they're going to have to kill off/sell the hardware division of Moto.

This just won't work... It doesn't fit with Google's business plans, they wanted the patents, ended up having to buy everything.

Unless Google is going to screw over current handset manufacturers using Android.
 
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SunnyD said:
This is a good thing for MMI too, since they've been teetering on the edge for a while now. There's a reason why Moto proper had spun off their mobile division into a separate entity, and that reason was to entertain suitors to offload what was a dying division.
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didn't they dump all the pension benefits on MMI as well?
 
dougp said:
Couldn't this also hurt other Android developers? Despite the OS being free, some manufacturers might want to avoid competing with Google's own devices which will probably receive some preferential treatment?
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That would be my concern. If you're a 3rd party you don't want to be beholden to someone that competes with you, and if you're Google you don't want to encourage 3rd party phone sales when you'd make more money selling the phones directly. There's a good reason why tech companies are vertical XOR horizontal.

Anyhow, I'd expect we'll see Android become even more closed than it already is with 3.x as everyone else becomes a 2nd class citizen within the Android ecosystem. Which is going to put HTC and Verizon in a very tight spot.
 
Ok, unless Google is going to really try to become Apple (and phones/tablets are just part of what Apple is) this makes no sense at all.

They just burned 25% of their cash to do this... Last I heard, Google had about 40 billion or so.

3 scenarios:

Google runs Moto like a stepchild, treating it like the other handset manufacturers (makes absolutely no sense)

Google sells off or just lets the hardware side of Moto die slowly (would be the best thing for the other manufacturers)

Google tries to dominate the handset market using Moto and Android. (I think this is the most likely scenario)
 
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