Google buys Motorola to improve patent portfolio for $12.5B - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

FlameOn · 08-15-2011, 07:00 AM

Pretty big news, google just bought Motorola and all their huge patents portfolio on everything mobile technology related. I suspect we'll see the lawsuit situation with Android to get interesting.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-200...ty-for-$12.5b/

Russic · 08-15-2011, 07:20 AM

Whoa. Finally getting some hardware backing. 12.5 billion... that's a lot of adsense.

simmer2 · 08-15-2011, 07:36 AM

Interesting move after the talk of all the patents...it's sad that a company has to buy another just for patents so they can be protected from lawsuits.

Rathji · 08-15-2011, 08:03 AM

That is huge.

Azure · 08-15-2011, 08:08 AM

Huge, huge, huge.

Bold move too. Motorola has a huge number of patents as well.

Azure · 08-15-2011, 08:11 AM

Quote:

This is where Motorola comes in. The company has patent portfolio that includes more than 17,000 approved patents. And it has another 7,500 patents filed and pending approval. This portfolio of patents is substantially larger thant he group of patents that was sold from Nortel Networks.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20...#ixzz1V6g3PxC5

Apple, Microsoft and RIM just got kicked in the ass.

FlameOn · 08-15-2011, 08:23 AM

Funny thing is no one else saw this coming. Do not want to play poker against these guys at all.

Hopefully this forces cross licensing deals on everyone and we have less stupid lawsuits costs that get passed onto the consumer.

GreatWhiteEbola · 08-15-2011, 09:17 AM

I might add that Motorola recently split into 2 entities (Dec 2010); Motorola Solutions, wi-fi, 2-way radio, EDA devices (formerly Symbol) etc. and Motorola Mobility, cell phone related concerns, digital boxes, and modems. Google is now the owner of Motorola Mobility.

I suspected that Motorola was shopping the mobility side of things when they split the groups, in fact the split was supposed to happen in 2009. They seemed to hold off until the market was ready for the sale of Motorola Mobility, and it seems that a buyer has emerged.

Barnes · 08-15-2011, 10:20 AM

Does purchasing Motorola help? Yes, but they have already made 3 very large enemies.

Through the Nortel purchase, Apple and Microsoft now have plenty of patents to go after Google and their partners for networky/antenna/cell technology stuff as well. Apple, Microsoft and Oracle have plenty of Linux related patents through their acquisition of the Novell patents which the could use to go after Android OS related stuff. Microsoft and Apple both have numerous UI and OS related patents and will continue to harass Google by going after their partners. Oracle can do some real damage by being the holder of Java patents.

Google is in a very precarious situation and I can easily see it going this way:

Google buys Motorola Mobility
Google transfers patents to themselves
Android OEMs grow tired of paying money to Microsoft and soon Apple and Oracle
Samsung and HTC feel abandoned in partnership and focus more on WP7
Motorola Mobility continues to lose money
Google sells Motorola Mobility minus patents for peanuts

Azure · 08-15-2011, 10:42 AM

Well I certainly don't see it going that way.

Samsung and HTC won't abandon a partnership that has made their profits skyrocket. 550,000 activations per day is incredible.

The bigger picture here is that Google is now directly competing with Apple in that hardware field.

If you look at the patent picture, the patents that Motorola owned are apparently even higher profile than the patents that Nortel owned. So I could easily see the game swinging back in Google's favour.

kermitology · 08-15-2011, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure

Well I certainly don't see it going that way.

Samsung and HTC won't abandon a partnership that has made their profits skyrocket. 550,000 activations per day is incredible.

The bigger picture here is that Google is now directly competing with Apple in that hardware field.

If you look at the patent picture, the patents that Motorola owned are apparently even higher profile than the patents that Nortel owned. So I could easily see the game swinging back in Google's favour.

I wouldn't be quite so quick to jump to that conclusion. Here is one possible scenario: http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/...-pulls-a-zune/

Also.. this is kind of creepy:
http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/

Azure · 08-15-2011, 11:56 AM

I guess it could go either way, although I don't see Google abandoning their partners that way. HTC, Samsung and LG have competition between themselves that is driving the smartphone war. 550,000 activations per day is largely because of the work they have done.

Either way, Google is now the #1 manufacturer of set top boxes in the US. Google TV might actually do something now.

GreenTeaFrapp · 08-15-2011, 12:16 PM

I don't see what alternative the other Android mobile phone makers have.

They're better off competing with Google on the hardware side than going to an OS that doesn't have the market penetration of Android.

And Google's already had their own hardware before with the Nexus. It didn't prevent others from bringing out Android phones, it just forced them to improve their phones.

MarchHare · 08-15-2011, 12:19 PM

Isn't Google's smartphone OS strategy akin to Microsoft's PC OS strategy? That is, they create and supply an OS to third-party hardware partners but don't actually compete in the hardware field themselves (as opposed to Apple and RIM who create both the OS and the hardware). What possible gain is there to abandon that strategy now, considering that history has shown time and again that the system available to the greatest number of hardware manufacturers tends to win the most marketshare even if competing technologies are superior (e.g. Mac vs. DOS/Windows, Betamax vs. VHS, etc.).

Barnes · 08-15-2011, 12:28 PM

I am excited to see what will happen to Motorola's cordless phone and baby monitor product lines though.

Azure · 08-15-2011, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Isn't Google's smartphone OS strategy akin to Microsoft's PC OS strategy? That is, they create and supply an OS to third-party hardware partners but don't actually compete in the hardware field themselves (as opposed to Apple and RIM who create both the OS and the hardware). What possible gain is there to abandon that strategy now, considering that history has shown time and again that the system available to the greatest number of hardware manufacturers tends to win the most marketshare even if competing technologies are superior (e.g. Mac vs. DOS/Windows, Betamax vs. VHS, etc.).

You've just pointed out exactly why Google won't let it become a problem.

MickMcGeough · 08-15-2011, 12:55 PM

Not sure if this has been pointed out, but Google didn't buy the whole company.

Barnes · 08-15-2011, 12:59 PM

Also pretty slick that they bought a company that has a lot of h.264 patents yet have been previously promoting WebM as a standard because h.264 has too many perceived licensing issues.

GreatWhiteEbola · 08-15-2011, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

Not sure if this has been pointed out, but Google didn't buy the whole company.

Yep, post #8.

Hemi-Cuda · 08-15-2011, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Isn't Google's smartphone OS strategy akin to Microsoft's PC OS strategy? That is, they create and supply an OS to third-party hardware partners but don't actually compete in the hardware field themselves (as opposed to Apple and RIM who create both the OS and the hardware). What possible gain is there to abandon that strategy now, considering that history has shown time and again that the system available to the greatest number of hardware manufacturers tends to win the most marketshare even if competing technologies are superior (e.g. Mac vs. DOS/Windows, Betamax vs. VHS, etc.).

Google is keeping Motorola as a separate entity, as an end consumer we won't notice any difference. Google is even going so far as to stress that Motorola won't have any advantage when it comes to bidding to create the new Nexus (Google's flagship Android phone)

http://www.androidcentral.com/motoro...ndy-rubin-says

another big thing to note is that unlike other software or hardware licenses, Android is open source. hardware manufacturers don't pay Google anything to put Android on their devices, unlike Windows. this move by Google doesn't impact their business at all, and in fact all the major Android hardware makers have already come out in support of Google's move as this will help protect them from the vultures at Apple and Microsoft trying to sue them into oblivion