This should be entertaining.

[theweaselking]

Google buys Motorola.

(Actually "just" Motorola Mobile - their entire handheld division - but still!)

Comments

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

This is good news for two reasons:

1) Motorola makes good hardware. The main complaint about Motorola phones is the Motoblur skin they put on their phones. Google will probably, hopefully, kill Motoblur and make the interface more Nexus-esque. Ideally they'll be unlocking bootloaders.

2) It gives Google a bunch of patents to use in the smartphone patent wars. It would be much better if you didn't need a pile of frivolous patents to operate in this sector, but Apple and Microsoft don't agree.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

It's also interesting from a local's point of view -- when Motorola Mobile was spun off of Motorola, there was speculation as to whether it would leave the state (Illinois) and locate elsewhere.

Google, as it happens, has a presence in Chicago. Not as large as Mountain View, of course, and that doesn't mean it couldn't still relocate. But at the moment I'm feeling a little better.

(Note: I haven't done anything for Motorola since the early nineties, so it doesn't affect me directly, but I have friends who'd be affected by the move.)

[publius1.livejournal.com]

There's no anticompetitive/trust issues here that I can see.

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

None that aren't being hammered on by other companies already, unfortunately.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

nope, in fact it brings Google up to competitive parity.

their practices thus far have, in fact, been anti-competitive



[yup. Undercutting your opponents while totally ignoring their intellectual property rights is actually a bit naughty. Even if the patent system is very broken]

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

No it isn't. It is legally dubious, but anyone who conflates IP legalism and ethics has no idea about either. The current IP scheme is anti-competitive; an arbitrary barrier to entry to any would-be competitors utterly divorced from innovation, invention or merit.

But, if one was going to go that way, then this is exactly the right thing for google to do. They're paying $12.5 billion to buy the stable of frivolous documents required to do homage to the current IP regime. Once they enter into a properly asinine mutual-licensing, then the violation of the sacred IP gods will be forgiven.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Damn.

I really, badly want to argue this, but
a: yeah, my comment kinda sucked and I knew that when I posted it. I should know better than to post something that lame.
b: while I have relatively strong opinions on this, I don't know the law anywhere near well enough to argue properly.

all I will say is that Google should have seen this coming as a definite necessity a looooong way off. By ignoring the patents they knew they were violating, they've basically invited the costs involved. You'd have to be either insane or retarded to expect anything else.

and lets be clear here: MS and Apple are not patent trolls. They're among the biggest companies that have ever existed, and are using the system that exists to protect their interests. Whether we agree with that system [neither of us, or many rational people do], fact is it's there and it's going to be used.

Google, in short, knew this was coming.


uhm. ok, that was an argument.

and I think Apple's current effort to block sales of the Galaxy Tab is utterly filthy.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

Can't disagree much there. Possibly Google went into Android as a method to compel reform of the US's patent regime. If they can manage that, it will probably be worth their investment. Otherwise, should have guessed that patent suits would be on the horizon. They should have bid higher for the Nortel patent portfolio so they would have had sufficient piles of patents in the dick-measuring contests we call mutual license agreements.

MS and Apple are not patent trolls. They are major technology companies that engage in patent trolling as a means of market control. They are not at all unique in this.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

That will prove interesting, in the international domain, and might be eventually the start of what gets me a smartphone. Inasmuchas I have any brand royalty in the phone space, I have it to Motorola.