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[Dr. Malik]

This is amazing, long live Android

 

[BudokaiMR2]

Fuck yeah Google! I really like the ideas behind Android but it seemed pretty unfair that it was destined to be bullied around by patent lawsuits. Hopefully this will give them a little bit of breathing room.

 

[OfWhiteSkinOnRedLeather]

Why? Do people still buy Motorola phones? Isn't their mobile division as dead outside the US as Nokia is outside.. well, pretty much everywhere?

They've made some pretty good Android phones the past year or so, so yeah, people buy their phones.

 

[brotkasten]

Do you guys think the division was worth $12.5B? The CEO might have pushed the price a bit last week.

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha now says he'd be interested in shipping Windows Phones if Motorola could get the same kind of deal that Nokia got from Microsoft.

http://www.businessinsider.com/moto...t-if-we-could-get-that-nokia-deal-2011-8?op=1

And I might be wrong, but doesn't it sound like they were in talks with Microsoft, too?

Question answered: Nope.

Andy: We have the Nexus program and the lead device strategy. What we do is we select an OEM around Christmastime of each year -- a chip company, everything else -- and they all huddle together in one building, and around the holidays a new device pops out. That won't change, Moto will be a separate business and part of that bidding process.

"What was that, LG? You bid more than Motorola? I'm sorry, didn't hear that. See you next year!".

 

[nubbe]

Well, the manufacturing should be under some Chinese company like Flexcomm.
When contracts and commitment expire there should not be much of a hardware bushiness left of the Mobility division.

 

[Rei_Toei]

Quick, bring back clamshell design in smartphones. I'd buy a Motorola again.

 

[MThanded]

This is dangerous.


Side note : WSJ: Google to pay an "AT&T style" reverse breakup fee of $2.5 billion to Motorola Mobility if the deal falls through, a source says. $GOOG

 

[RoadHazard]

Hope this means no more motoblur and retroactively unlocking bootloaders. And I'm surprised people still never heard of Motorola recently. The DROID brand is huge and basically got android popular with the general public.

Only in the US. In Europe, Motorola phones aren't very popular. I don't know know anyone (in fact, I don't think I've ever even seen anyone) with a Motorola Android phone. It's all Samsung, HTC and SE here.

As has already been mentioned, the DROID brand doesn't exist here. They're called Milestone here and, again, are not very popular as far as I can tell.

 

[kamil]

Apparently Android OEMs are happy about acquisition:

Q: Around Android partners
Rubin: I talked to the top five licensees. They all showed enthusiastic support. Android doesn’t make sense to be a single OEM. All of our existing OEM partners help make it what it is today.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Massive news. Patents aside, I'm interested to see how they plan use this to push the Android brand forward. They say they'll keep the businesses separate, but surely having the software and hardware teams working together makes innovation easier. It's also worth noting Motorola's work in set-top boxes and home automation is probably pretty compelling to Google.

They bought Moto Mobility which is the handset division.

Anyway, I would be surprised if Motorala make any handsets beyond 2013, this is a purely defensive buy from Google to protect Android and the ecosystem. The other major Android handset maker with no ties to a parent company or somesuch is HTC, but they don't have the patent portfolio that Google are after. HTC are probably a better fit for Google if they wanted a handset maker, but since they don't it really doesn't matter.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google ended up spinning them off in a couple of years while holding onto the patents and giving the spun off company a perpetual licence agreement for mobile patents bought just now.

 

[SimleuqiR]

They could've bought Greece for 12.5 Billion and call it Googland.

 

[kinggroin]

What does this mean for the Xoom?

Nothing. The Xoom is practically the nexus of tablets as far as support goes.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Motorola make a lot of shit besides phones.

I don't think I've ever seen anything Motorola-branded besides their cell phones, which I last saw over a decade ago. Is the company completely dead here in Europe or something?

Did you guys all miss out on the Razr? Everyone and their grandma owned one at some point in the early 2000s. Its sales broke records. For some time Motorola fell behind the smartphone market, but their powerplay in launching the original Droid played a huge part in Android's early adoption.

I seem to vaguely remember the Razr, but I think few people around here owned it, as Motorola was considered.. well, kinda shit. At least compared to Nokia. Nowadays people don't even care enough about Motorola to consider them shit, I guess.

They've made some pretty good Android phones the past year or so, so yeah, people buy their phones.

Must be in the US. I can't even remember seeing any sort of marketing whatsoever for Motorola here.

 

[Phantast2k]

Patents; no doubt.

 

[ShabbadooJr]

the real news to me is that motorola is actually called MOTOROLA MOBILITY. awesome.

i wonder what google will get out of this that they didn't already get out of motorola pretty much pinning their flag to android in the first place. those are some expensive patent rights.

Motorola Mobility is a separate company the spun off. The other Motorola does walkie-talkie, cable boxes, etc.


Google should've bought HTC instead of Motorola.

 

[sophora]

well this should be quite interesting

 

[VanMardigan]

Do you guys think the division was worth $12.5B? The CEO might have pushed the price a bit last week.


http://www.businessinsider.com/moto...t-if-we-could-get-that-nokia-deal-2011-8?op=1

And I might be wrong, but doesn't it sound like they were in talks with Microsoft, too?

Yeah, this is interesting. Looks like Moto wanted a Nokia-style deal or a buyout and Google didn't want to lose out like they did with Nokia. Having lost the Nortel bid, they overpaid to get Moto but this is most definitely the right thing to do. MS probably looked into it, but they didn't need this deal nearly as much as Google did.

MS would've done a deal with Moto for the phones, Google did it for the patents.

 

[Interfectum]

Google should've bought HTC instead of Motorola.

Uh, why? Google bought Motorola for the patents, not to be a hardware manufacturer.

 

[Polari]

They bought Moto Mobility which is the handset division.

Who also manufacture set-top boxes and home automation systems.

 

[Luckyman]

Nexus confirmed NOT Moto exclusive

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Who also manufacture set-top boxes and home automation systems.

Nix that, mobility does include set top boxes, but not automation systems or networking.

 

[DarkFlow]

In an attempt to increase competition Goole eliminates a competitor. Got it.

Google never competed with moto. Moto made Android phones.

 

[sikkinixx]

"We are proud to release the newest, greatest version of the world's only truly purely OPEN mobile platform, Android x.x, or Sugarplum, exclusively to Motorola branded phones for the next 6 months"

 

[disap.ed]

It still amaze me how most people in the 90s considered Microsoft a big danger because they had their OS on most PCs, while now Google controls most of information (web search, digital books), "scanned" the whole planet, try to take control of mobile communication, social networking, virtual OS etc... and it's cool because they're "the good guys".

That's why!

 

[Polari]

Nix that, mobility does include set top boxes, but not automation systems or networking.

Once again, I beg to differ: http://pinchzoom.com/posts/motorola-4home/motorola-4home

 

[kehs]

How the mighty have fallen.

 

[MThanded]

In an attempt to increase competition Goole eliminates a competitor. Got it.

no

 

[Sydle]

Wow.

I had a motorola phone before, it was shit.

 

[numble]

Google never competed with moto. Moto made Android phones.

Motorola was flirting with Windows Phone and had its skunkworks mobile operating system (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/223252/will_a_new_motorola_os_rival_android_and_ios.html) it was working on.

 

[thcsquad]

Honestly, I don't think I've met anyone with a Motorola phone since I was in secondary school 13 years ago (my first phone was a Motorola, and it was built as a tank). And even back then it was all about Nokia, before Sony Ericsson took over, and nowadays it's Sony Ericsson, Apple, HTC and Samsung (although SE seems to have fallen somewhat by the wayside as of late).

Well, in the US Motorola Droids are ridiculously popular.

I don't think I've ever seen anything Motorola-branded besides their cell phones, which I last saw over a decade ago. Is the company completely dead here in Europe or something?

The other Motorola (the part that is still called Motorola after the Mobility spinoff) does other radio-type hardware and installations, like police radios. That section of their business is huge and from what I can remember, profitable.

 

[ComputerMKII]

The weird shit you can find on Google Patents...

http://www.google.com/patents?id=qtFaAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[PARANO1A]

Really looking forward to seeing what this does for Android. Couldn't be happier assuming this puts a big dent in the ridiculous patent wars.

 

[Superimposer]

This is good news

 

[Firestorm]

The perils of licensing to your competitors

Also, for those of us outside the United States and haven't seen anyone use a Motorola phone since the Razr, were any Motorola phones since the original Droid popular at all in the US?

 

[xtop]

i hope this means a whole lineup of pure android devices, but quotes like this make me think it'll be the same crappy phones

Q: Regarding Google potentially competing with other OEMs.
Page: No change in how we’re running Android. Android is still open. Our partners are very excited about this.
Rubin: Motorola was one of the early licensees. After the transaction nothing changes. It’s business as usual. It’s about protecting and extending the ecosystem.

 

[Suitcase Test]

Except Google from the beginning has been trying to fight the system.

Well, it was less of a "fuck you Google for doing this" and more of a "fuck the fact that this is needed".

 

[TUSR]

Motorola has always sucked though... pretty clear this was for the patent/litigation war with Apple.

 

[kehs]

I wonder is this will pass DOJ scrutiny.

This was obviously a long term plan between google/motorola and explains the mobility spin off.

Hello ugly Nexuses!

 

[D4Danger]

holy shit! $12.5 billion

Google really needs those patents they don't care about

 

[scorcho]

how would this run afoul the DOJ? Motorola has a ridiculously small share of the smartphone market.

 

[numble]

I wonder is this will pass DOJ scrutiny.

This was obviously a long term plan between google/motorola and explains the mobility spin off.

Hello ugly Nexuses!

Mobility was spun off a long time ago.

Firestorm, according to Nielsen, Motorola had 11% of the US smartphone market.

 

[TUSR]

holy shit! $12.5 billion

Google really needs those patents they don't care about

Well they need those patents if Apple is trying to block the sales of their android devices in different countries...

 

[Luckyman]

This will be very good also for Google TV

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Well, in the US Motorola Droids are ridiculously popular.



The other Motorola (the part that is still called Motorola after the Mobility spinoff) does other radio-type hardware and installations, like police radios. That section of their business is huge and from what I can remember, profitable.

It seems like talking to someone from another planet, with Motorola being hugely popular in the US, while being completely dead in Europe :lol As for the other part of Motorola, I know they make a lot of different stuff, but I can't remember having seen any of that in a long time, but I think my dad had a satellite dish tuner made by Motorola over a decade ago.

 

[SomeDude]

Could Google afford to buy a company like microsoft or IBM?

 

[ShinobiFist]

Google TV is going to benefit from this. Actually, everyone is.

 

[Barrett2]

Dat patents

 

[GCX]

This and Microsoft's partnership with Nokia should provide some interesting times in smartphone competition.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Could Google afford to buy a company like microsoft or IBM?

No. The furthest they could go is maybe Sony at around $80-90bn and that would have to be through share issuance, not cash.

 

[Patriots7]

Could Google afford to buy a company like microsoft or IBM?

No, Microsoft and IBM are much larger than Google.

No. The furthest they could go is maybe Sony at around $80-90bn and that would have to be through share issuance, not cash.

Sony is not worth $80B and haven't been since the early 2000's. They're around $24B