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The rumour at the time was that Google fully intended to enter the hardware business. they wanted to keep Motorola forever and didn't just buy them for patents,

The rumour at the time was that Google fully intended to enter the hardware business. they wanted to keep Motorola forever and didn't just buy them for patents, but Samsung threw a hissy fit and threatened to drop android entirely if Google was going to compete with them directly. Moto was sold as part of a deal with samsung (samsung intro'd a tablet with a very microsoft-y UI shortly before google sold motorola, and after the sale the software was re-done to be much closer to stock android) Presumably, with the Pixel line going head-to-head with the Galaxy S last year the situation has changed enough that Google no longer fears that Samsung will ditch Android. It's also worth noting that the rumour here is that Google will buy specific manufacturing and hardware assets from HTC, but will not buy the brand. So it's less of a "buying the company and keeping the parts they want" situation, and more of a "buy only the parts they want" situation.

tooltalk 9y ago
Not sure if that's the case. Samsung was always developing Android and Windows based mobile devices -- though Android was selling in much larger quantity. Both Moto and HTC were/are way past their prime and I personally think Google should just let it die and pick up distressed assets at bargain price when it goes belly up. It'd be also interesting if Samsung would drop Android altogether and starts using MS mobile OS.
- usrusr 9y ago
  > just let it die and pick up distressed assets at bargain price when it goes belly up. Doing that would mean that all the experience that could have been part of the deal will already be gone.
- endemic 9y ago
  Samsung also has their own OS, Tizen, which seems like a hedge against Google. I'd be curious to know what it would take for them to pull the trigger and make it the default OS in the Galaxy line.
katastic 9y ago
Yeah. I've got plenty of criticism for Google. But not this. Google isn't in the business of "trading" businesses to flip them for profit. It's a 100x more plausible that they went in with optimism, and got snagged by something unanticipated. And what's more unanticipated yet powerful, than not a law, but a competitor with deep political and financial leverage in your company's markets? Those kind of power plays happen all the time in the advertiser and entertainment world.
- basch 9y ago
  its much more plausible that they initially treated moto as any other android vendor, and now they are willing to treat their internal hardware division as someone who gets exclusive features and special treatment, as they have with pixel. i think google made a mistake not turning moto into googles flagship hardware, similar to the surface/dell/hp/lenovo relationship. intel does the same thing with nucs.
- marricks 9y ago
  Unanticipated that Samsung would freakout at a competitor directly from Google itself? I remember a lot of talk about Samsung's Tizen operating system around then, so the most plausible explanation to me was that Google bought Motorola specifically to keep Samsung inline with a more stock android, end results hold up to that as well. Of course it's always hard to figure out cause and effect, but Google never even appeared to go all in with Motorola on hardware beyond the initial purchase... smelled like a ploy.
fossuser 9y ago
I wish Google had just told Samsung they didn't care if they dropped Android back then - not sure what other OS Samsung would have switched to, but if Touchwiz is any indication it probably wouldn't have been very good. Samsung's hardware today seems better, but for a long time the galaxy phones were cheap plastic builds with unwanted software customization on top. The few Motorola phones that came out during the Google ownership were nice. If Google had built their own hardware back then (or had even gotten Nokia) I would probably have stayed on Android. For a long time starting around iPhone 5 the Apple hardware was a lot better (prior to that Apple lacked turn by turn navigation and LTE). The Nexus One was nice, but the S wasn't great and the Galaxy Nexus was terrible enough to switch. Now Apple seems to be winning in security and new hardware features and everything else is fairly comparable.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Regardless of how bad Samsung's alternative would have been (probably Tizen, but possibly Windows Phone), it would still look incredibly bad for Android and Google for the news of the top Android OEM getting out of the Android space.
  - e40 9y ago
    There is no way on earth Samsung would have dropped android. Google lost this game of chicken, that's for sure.
    - Synaesthesia 9y ago
      The alleged game of chicken, and we don’t know what else happened.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      The entire Tizen project as well as continued efforts in Google competitors like Bixby is Samsung hedging their bets to leave. Samsung is probably the only Android OEM who could leave without going out of business: People would buy the next Galaxy no matter what it ran, and Samsung has the clout to push all the major app developers to push to their own store.
paul7986 9y ago
Interesting about the Samsung thing as only two months after Google bought Motorola and two weeks after Samsung announced the Galaxy 4 Google/Moto sent me email re: building my tech into the Moto X. My startup SpeakerBlast forces multiple devices to play the same audio in sync and Samsung just announced that feature (Group Play) in the Galaxy S4. At a meeting with them in SunnyVale I thought I finally hit the start-up jackpot..... https://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html https://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html
0xbear 9y ago
Pretty sure that rumor is incorrect. Google just had strong aversion to losing hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter, and bifurcating its workforce into haves and have nots. The bifurcation problem is now solved with the Alphabet reorg. The loss problem very much remains.
bitmapbrother 9y ago
I've never believed that rumor of Samsung threatening to drop Android simply because it would have been financial suicide for their smartphone division. They currently have about 23% of the worldwide smartphone market and if they were to ever leave their marketshare would quickly be scooped up by other Android OEM's. Consumers want their Google Maps, Waze, Play Store and other Google services and for Samsung to think they would retain their marketshare by selling phones devoid of these services would be very shortsighted.
- meric 9y ago
  Perhaps Samsung believes if Google manufactured its own phones, Samsung's smartphone might as well be finished in a couple of years anyway - Google could gain some market share then eventually discontinue updating Android for other manufacturers. Then Samsung would truly be on its own.
wpietri 9y ago
On the one hand, this makes total sense to me. On the other, how could Google not have sounded out their partners before deciding to compete with them? When you buy something for $12 billion, hopefully there's a little forethought involved. Also, does anybody know what the Motorola acquisition and sale cost them? They kept pieces of it, so I can't tell right away how it worked out.

tooltalk 9y ago

Not sure if that's the case. Samsung was always developing Android and Windows based mobile devices -- though Android was selling in much larger quantity. Both Moto and HTC were/are way past their prime and I personally think Google should just let it die and pick up distressed assets at bargain price when it goes belly up. It'd be also interesting if Samsung would drop Android altogether and starts using MS mobile OS.

usrusr 9y ago
> just let it die and pick up distressed assets at bargain price when it goes belly up. Doing that would mean that all the experience that could have been part of the deal will already be gone.
endemic 9y ago
Samsung also has their own OS, Tizen, which seems like a hedge against Google. I'd be curious to know what it would take for them to pull the trigger and make it the default OS in the Galaxy line.

katastic 9y ago

Yeah. I've got plenty of criticism for Google. But not this. Google isn't in the business of "trading" businesses to flip them for profit. It's a 100x more plausible that they went in with optimism, and got snagged by something unanticipated. And what's more unanticipated yet powerful, than not a law, but a competitor with deep political and financial leverage in your company's markets? Those kind of power plays happen all the time in the advertiser and entertainment world.

basch 9y ago
its much more plausible that they initially treated moto as any other android vendor, and now they are willing to treat their internal hardware division as someone who gets exclusive features and special treatment, as they have with pixel. i think google made a mistake not turning moto into googles flagship hardware, similar to the surface/dell/hp/lenovo relationship. intel does the same thing with nucs.
marricks 9y ago
Unanticipated that Samsung would freakout at a competitor directly from Google itself? I remember a lot of talk about Samsung's Tizen operating system around then, so the most plausible explanation to me was that Google bought Motorola specifically to keep Samsung inline with a more stock android, end results hold up to that as well. Of course it's always hard to figure out cause and effect, but Google never even appeared to go all in with Motorola on hardware beyond the initial purchase... smelled like a ploy.

fossuser 9y ago

I wish Google had just told Samsung they didn't care if they dropped Android back then - not sure what other OS Samsung would have switched to, but if Touchwiz is any indication it probably wouldn't have been very good. Samsung's hardware today seems better, but for a long time the galaxy phones were cheap plastic builds with unwanted software customization on top. The few Motorola phones that came out during the Google ownership were nice. If Google had built their own hardware back then (or had even gotten Nokia) I would probably have stayed on Android. For a long time starting around iPhone 5 the Apple hardware was a lot better (prior to that Apple lacked turn by turn navigation and LTE). The Nexus One was nice, but the S wasn't great and the Galaxy Nexus was terrible enough to switch. Now Apple seems to be winning in security and new hardware features and everything else is fairly comparable.

s73ver_ 9y ago
Regardless of how bad Samsung's alternative would have been (probably Tizen, but possibly Windows Phone), it would still look incredibly bad for Android and Google for the news of the top Android OEM getting out of the Android space.
- e40 9y ago
  There is no way on earth Samsung would have dropped android. Google lost this game of chicken, that's for sure.
  - Synaesthesia 9y ago
    The alleged game of chicken, and we don’t know what else happened.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    The entire Tizen project as well as continued efforts in Google competitors like Bixby is Samsung hedging their bets to leave. Samsung is probably the only Android OEM who could leave without going out of business: People would buy the next Galaxy no matter what it ran, and Samsung has the clout to push all the major app developers to push to their own store.

paul7986 9y ago

Interesting about the Samsung thing as only two months after Google bought Motorola and two weeks after Samsung announced the Galaxy 4 Google/Moto sent me email re: building my tech into the Moto X. My startup SpeakerBlast forces multiple devices to play the same audio in sync and Samsung just announced that feature (Group Play) in the Galaxy S4. At a meeting with them in SunnyVale I thought I finally hit the start-up jackpot..... https://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html https://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html

0xbear 9y ago

Pretty sure that rumor is incorrect. Google just had strong aversion to losing hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter, and bifurcating its workforce into haves and have nots. The bifurcation problem is now solved with the Alphabet reorg. The loss problem very much remains.

bitmapbrother 9y ago

I've never believed that rumor of Samsung threatening to drop Android simply because it would have been financial suicide for their smartphone division. They currently have about 23% of the worldwide smartphone market and if they were to ever leave their marketshare would quickly be scooped up by other Android OEM's. Consumers want their Google Maps, Waze, Play Store and other Google services and for Samsung to think they would retain their marketshare by selling phones devoid of these services would be very shortsighted.

meric 9y ago
Perhaps Samsung believes if Google manufactured its own phones, Samsung's smartphone might as well be finished in a couple of years anyway - Google could gain some market share then eventually discontinue updating Android for other manufacturers. Then Samsung would truly be on its own.

wpietri 9y ago

On the one hand, this makes total sense to me. On the other, how could Google not have sounded out their partners before deciding to compete with them? When you buy something for $12 billion, hopefully there's a little forethought involved. Also, does anybody know what the Motorola acquisition and sale cost them? They kept pieces of it, so I can't tell right away how it worked out.