If you haven’t already seen the flood of reports online (including a number of related stories on ETCentric), Google announced it will acquire Motorola for $40 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion. The deal has led to a great deal of speculation this week regarding the future of the Android ecosystem and other enterprises such as Google TV.
“This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business,” stated Larry Page in the official Google blog. “Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.”
Page believes the acquisition will also serve as a buffer to anti-competitive patent attacks on Android: “Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”
This deal raises a number of compelling questions (see thoughts by Robert Scoble, Peter Kafka and others in the related posts listed below), but first I have to ask: Can Google have its “open platform” and compete with its licensees too?
It’s hard to believe that google won’t use motorola to build the flagship tablets and phones for android. HTC has to be feeling the heat, they may have to expand beyond the just the android OS.
Bryan GonzalezAugust 15, 2011 at 03:12pm
It’s hard to believe that google won’t use motorola to build the flagship tablets and phones for android. HTC has to be feeling the heat, they may have to expand beyond the just the android OS.
Dennis KubaAugust 15, 2011 at 07:32pm
Will the cable industry and content providers let Google create Motorola’s next set-top box?
Dennis KubaAugust 15, 2011 at 07:32pm
Will Google’s acquisition of Motorola jumpstart Google TV?
Dennis KubaAugust 15, 2011 at 07:32pm
Will the cable industry and content providers let Google create Motorola’s next set-top box?
Dennis KubaAugust 15, 2011 at 07:32pm
Will Google’s acquisition of Motorola jumpstart Google TV?
6 Comments
It’s hard to believe that google won’t use motorola to build the flagship tablets and phones for android. HTC has to be feeling the heat, they may have to expand beyond the just the android OS.
It’s hard to believe that google won’t use motorola to build the flagship tablets and phones for android. HTC has to be feeling the heat, they may have to expand beyond the just the android OS.
Will the cable industry and content providers let Google create Motorola’s next set-top box?
Will Google’s acquisition of Motorola jumpstart Google TV?
Will the cable industry and content providers let Google create Motorola’s next set-top box?
Will Google’s acquisition of Motorola jumpstart Google TV?
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