Google and Motorola Deal Finalized, Sanjay Jha Steps Down
What seems like an eternity ago, Google announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility. After receiving the final blessing from China, today the deal has been completed. In the midst of the closing current Motorola Mobility CEO, Sanjay Jha, has stepped down and is being replaced by Dennis Woodside. Along with Woodside, executives from Amazon, Google, and Visa will be joining the ranks.
What is not known, is what Google plans to do with Motorola Mobility. Will they enter the hardware game or will they simply keep the patents and spin the hardware division off? Either way, Motorola has some huge transitions ahead of itself and change is definitely in the air.
via [The Verge]
Patented Up: Google Gets Approval to buy Motorola; Apple, RIM & Microsoft get Nortel Patents
My your cup runneth over with patents tech giants. Yesterday Google was given the go ahead from the Department of Justice to purchase Motorola Mobility. The acquisition will help bolster Google’s patent portfolio and give them and their partners some defense against Android lawsuits. The DoJ also made sure to let Google know that they will keep an eye on them and make sure they are licensing these patents fairly.
In other exciting (sarcasm) patent news, Apple, Microsoft and RIM were also granted the purchase of 6,000 Nortel patents by the DoJ. The three companies, along with others, teamed up to create “Rock Star Bidco” and collectively bid $4.5 Billion for these patents.
Now that every one is all “patented up”, things might get more interesting since all sides will have all kinds of BS to throw at one another. Hopefully they can just work out license agreements and everyone can go back to innovating instead of dragging this stuff to court.
via [Engadget and Ars Technica]
Nexus Tablet coming Next, says Schmidt
Eric Schmidt told an Italian Newspaper that, in the next 6 months they are planning on releasing a tablet of the highest quality, that will be competing against the iPad. Google has been putting out pure devices with the Nexus branding on their phones and maybe, now is the time to start with the tablets.
The Motorola Xoom’s have been the flagship tablets from Google up to now, and that possibly might not change with Google now owning Motorola Mobility. Only time will tell what Google comes out with but whatever it is, they better get ready, if your going to compete with the iPad right now you have an uphill battle ahead.
(via Android Community)
Google is Another step closer to Motorola Acquisition
Google and Motorola agreed on a 12.5 billion dollar merger just a couple of months ago, which was a huge deal. Everyone knew that was only the first step to Google owning Motorola. Now, we are one step closer because the shareholders for Motorola have approved the merger.
There were 74% of the shareholders available to vote, and it was an overwhelming 99% vote for yes. Google still has other regulatory issues to get past first, but from what it looks like now the acquisition will be taking place in the first half of 2012.
(via Android Community)
Google not to Favor Motorola, Says Schmidt
In a recent interview, Eric Schmidt was quizzed about Google acquiring Motorola Mobility and what kind of affect that would have on Google’s openness with Android. Schmidt assured that the ecosystem is their number one priority and they will not do anything with Motorola, or anyone else that would screw up the dynamics of the industry.
He goes on to say that, they will not play favorites to any company like a lot of the analyst are concerned about. This is good to hear from Schmidt, but we are not totally sure we believe him. Google might be able to keep up with the way things have been working for a while but it is hard to believe that nothing will not change down the road to be partial to Motorola. Only time will tell, at least it sounds like they have good intentions.
(via Droid Life)
