How’s this for a Monday morning face smacker – Google buys Motorola for $12.5 Billion


Normally we just have a good hot cup of coffee to start our Monday mornings but today Google decided we needed a little extra and let the world know that it was now also in the smartphone handset business after buying Motorola Mobility for the tidy sum of $12.5 billion.

Now that your tired eyes have snapped open read that again – $12.5 billion. or rather $40 per share, which makes it the largest tech deal to date.

The reason behind the purchase, or at least a major component is Motorola’s collection of mobile patents and Google’s ongoing patent problems with Android as pointed out in Larry Page’s post announcing the deal

We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. 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.

Of course the news is playing well on Google’s new social network Google+ with many “OMG how great is Google” and “take that Apple and Microsoft” type of comments.

And from another thread of gushiness

Good luck with the purchase Google but somehow I don’t think this is going to be the answer to all of the Android patent problems you are facing.

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