Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Google Buys Motorola Mobility! Googlerola?

Wow so apparently Google just bought the mobile division of Motorola for 12.5 billion dollars, which was splintered off from Motorola before into a separate company. That's really big news because before Google only provided the software for Android phones and allowed their partners to do the manufacturing. Now Google is competing with its partners as well, which would cause a sour taste in their competitors such as HTC and Samsung.

Some people are saying it's a good deal while others aren't. The pro is that you can finally have Google provide more original support, design and development in Android phones, hopefully making the fragmentation problem much less of a problem. This seems to confirm that Apple's unified approach of creating the software and hardware is the best way instead of just sending out the software to a multitude of partners. The con is that you just messed up your previous business model and probably burned a few bridges with your partners. The biggest reason though is that Google is buying up Motorola for the patents it has (17000 or more i believe) because Google has been dealing with a lot of lawsuits regarding patents (as well as everyone else in the tech world it seems) over mobile patents. At the very least, Google acquired the patents to protect itself but will it's 12.5 billion dollar acquisition amount to anything profitable or useful in advancing the Android platform? That is the million (or billion I guess) dollar question.

Isn't it interesting that both Google and Apple have now messed with Samsung (referring to Apple's lawsuit against Samsung for copyright infringement on their galaxy tab and phones)? I'm sure Samsung's not too happy about it.

For more on the news,

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-motorola-deal-2011-8

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