I'm sure the hardware was a bonus but at the time the purchase was primarily driven by the patents. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle , Cisco, and all the other big pla

I'm sure the hardware was a bonus but at the time the purchase was primarily driven by the patents. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle , Cisco, and all the other big players have shed loads of patents for just about everything and uses them as counter measures against any potential litigation. Google at the time was lacking in such patents and was vulnerable. Motorola presented an opportunity with it's extensive cache of patents to level the playing field.