6 ms·

To add: a) there will be at least 1 company focused on android which will be protected with the cloth that is Google's legal team. b) Google can make Motorola

To add: a) there will be at least 1 company focused on android which will be protected with the cloth that is Google's legal team. b) Google can make Motorola better c) Google can make hardware to go with their software. d) Google can finally make Motorola phones running android open. e) We can finally see what it means for a hardware company to exist with a motto: "Don't be Evil". Sure Google is not perfect, but all other companies have the motto: "Money first, morals second." f) Google can make an incredible experience which would become the de-facto standard for Android phones. Finally killing off HTC sense.

podperson 15y ago
I hope you're right. But Google has certainly sold it to its Android partners as "we're going to use their patents to defend your crapware-ridden half-assed locked down handsets and then smother the hardware people with this wet pillow": http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/ http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/
- ericd 15y ago
  Wow, those quotes all sound the same... it's almost eerie. We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem. We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem. I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners. We welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners. Those quotes are from the heads of 4 major companies...
  - com 15y ago
    It's not just almost eerie. It really is, and makes me think of zombies walking. PR zombies. Seriously, though, I imagine that there are pretty intense discussions taking place within a number of handset manufacturers right now about how to manage their risk: * treat (but how? it's a Gulliver situation even for someone like Samsung) * transfer (almost impossible to transfer the risks in this situation unless you join the MS camp) * accept (and have your shareholders crucify you if you made the wrong call) A very brave move from Google (in the Yes, Minister sense)
  - cperciva 15y ago
    You don't actually think the CEOs said those things, do you? Google's PR people would have written to them saying "can we quote you as saying X?", and they would have written back saying either "sure, that sounds fine" or "no, use this quote instead: ...".
    - ericd 15y ago
      You might be right, though I would think that even a PR person would have tried to introduce some variability to make it sound believable. I don't really know how these things typically work.
  - lurker14 15y ago
    Paging Matt Cutts. Web Spam cleanup in Aisle 3. Paging Matt Cutts The "See more results like this" SERP collapsed-grouping display is needed on that page.
  - baconner 15y ago
    I've long suspected there's some kind of madlibs for PR that all these companies use.
  - Calamitous 15y ago
    I, for one, welcome our new handset overlords...
  - yangtheman 15y ago
    I read the responses, and I felt exactly the same way. The news has been shared with the partners beforehand and all PR responses have been choreographed. I don't know what they would do exactly, though, since Android is the best mobile OS choice they have. Can't touch IOS. Windows Mobile sucks. Symbian is going away. Not an easy place to be.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    And do you think the PR guys asked them for a quote? No they did not. They wrote the quote and then asked the company if they would 'approve' it. (sort of quote by inference) I was exposed early on to this when a PR person wrote up a quote, attributed it to me, and then ran it through the PR department where I worked who 'signed off' on the release although no one actually asked me if I had made that quote. When I protested they said "Oh it sounded like something you would say, should we seek a retraction?" It was a hell of an introduction to this 'known technique' in the PR world. I told them that in the future they had to clear any quote attributed to me, through me, which they were happy to do. So my speculation is that the PR guys wrote these quotes, asked the partner's PR firm to approve, and they did, because none of the CEOs/GMs whatever have that flag set in their PR department that says "check with me before you approve something with a quote from me in it."
intended 15y ago
GOOG is a s/w company and not a manufacturer. The ability to integrate both sides of such different firms is very difficult. This puts both points b), c) and e) off the table. Point f)? I'm not sure, but I really hope that they can do something while looking at exactly how it will play out on a phone. They did try this with the Nexus though, and that was not something which worked out perfectly imho. M&A's have a tendency to be non-accretive to the purchaser. This looks like its going to be similar for Google.
- lukeschlather 15y ago
  >This puts both points b), c) and e) off the table. I don't see where you're coming from on b/c. Motorola makes great hardware - it would be hard to improve that. What Google can do is provide phones with unlocked bootloaders and the standard "Android Experience" UI. Google can make Motorola better precisely because they are a software company, and they can use that core competency to let Motorola focus on what they do best. (At the moment, Motorola shoots themselves in the foot by writing so much software.) On e, yes, I think the hardware division will have to stay divided from Google.
  - cube13 15y ago
    >I don't see where you're coming from on b/c. Motorola makes great hardware - it would be hard to improve that. That's exactly the problem. Google, as a software company, doesn't currently have to worry about a lot of the issues that the hardware side of Motorola does, like supply chain management(both on the production and disposal side), dealing with retail outlets, directly dealing with cellular service providers as a device manufacturer, governmental agency compliance for hardware, etc. Google doesn't have really any experience with this, which means they absolutely need to keep the people that are currently doing those jobs. Also, from what I've heard from people that used to work there, Motorola's engineering culture is on the "very corporate" side of things. Integrating that into Google's rather loose culture will be difficult, I think. This is especially important because both sides will need to be working with each other very closely. Best case, Google doesn't change much, and integrates Motorola's hardware chain well. However, if they do exert a lot of control over the hardware side, quality could decline in the short term as the issues I mentioned above get worked out. Overall, I think it's a much stronger position for both companies. Motorola gets Google's software expertise, and Google gets Motorola's hardware engineering and supply chain.
runjake 15y ago
Sure Google is not perfect, but all other companies have the motto: "Money first, morals second." You're kidding, right? By law, this is the modus operandi of any publicly-traded company. If you think any different, you've simply fallen for their rhetoric.
- lallysingh 15y ago
  Not when the founders are major stockholders. They won't sue themselves.
  - mbreese 15y ago
    They still have a feduciary responsibility to the minority stock holders.
    - r00fus 15y ago
      Actually, IIRC, there ARE no minority shareholders with voting interest. ALL of it is locked up within the triumvirate (Page, Brin, Schmidt). Whether this gives them any more leeway isn't clear to me, but Google is quite non-standard as far as corporate structure.
      - william42 15y ago
        There are two classes of stock. The class that Page, Brin, and Schmidt have has ten times as much voting power.
- nknight 15y ago
  The law absolutely does not require corporations to make decisions on any particular basis, and definitely does not require them to put profits first. Please stop spreading this myth, it confuses people and gives amoral executives an "out" for their horrible behavior. Fiduciary duty is an abstract concept that basically means a duty of trust. If shareholders are told that profits are secondary, you don't violate trust by not putting them first.
- 15y ago
InclinedPlane 15y ago
Given that Samsung and HTC have already embraced openness as a policy having "googarola" on that same team will add even more momentum to it. Even more when you consider that arduino is the basis for android accessories. In the near-term it's almost irrelevant if android were a worse experience and android devices were less capable (I don't think that's the case, which is all the better) because ultimately it's about development momentum and the OODA loop. If the android platform can congeal a larger critical mass of talented hackers and developers and they can get into a tighter and stronger feedback-develop-release cycle on their software and their hardware then they will beat the pants off of any of their competition.
malbs 15y ago
In regards to point e) I'm not sure how "Don't be Evil" applies to a company that makes bomb components and missile guidance systems.
- malbs 15y ago
  Unless of course the first thing GOOG does is wipe out all the IP and Patents owned by Motorola that have anything to do with... you know, killing people.
- donaq 15y ago
  Making bomb components and missile guidance systems is not evil in itself. If only evil men made and used weapons, the world would be in very bad shape. I'm not arguing that the specific weapons mentioned weren't used for evil, I'm just making a general point that all the peaceful people in the world can afford to be that way because there are guns protecting them, so it's not as simple as weapons == evil.
- groby_b 15y ago
  I'm not sure they're part of Motorola Mobility...
  - malbs 15y ago
    Ahh you're right, classic me, I just parsed the headline and assumed it was the whole company, not just the mobile division.
    - groby_b 15y ago
      No worries - I did the same thing :) I just had the benefit of already having digested a first wave of news when I finally came to the comments here.
- ecaradec 15y ago
  Given what they've done with self driving cars, they could do awesome missiles.

podperson 15y ago

I hope you're right. But Google has certainly sold it to its Android partners as "we're going to use their patents to defend your crapware-ridden half-assed locked down handsets and then smother the hardware people with this wet pillow": http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/ http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/

ericd 15y ago
Wow, those quotes all sound the same... it's almost eerie. We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem. We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem. I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners. We welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners. Those quotes are from the heads of 4 major companies...
- com 15y ago
  It's not just almost eerie. It really is, and makes me think of zombies walking. PR zombies. Seriously, though, I imagine that there are pretty intense discussions taking place within a number of handset manufacturers right now about how to manage their risk: * treat (but how? it's a Gulliver situation even for someone like Samsung) * transfer (almost impossible to transfer the risks in this situation unless you join the MS camp) * accept (and have your shareholders crucify you if you made the wrong call) A very brave move from Google (in the Yes, Minister sense)
- cperciva 15y ago
  You don't actually think the CEOs said those things, do you? Google's PR people would have written to them saying "can we quote you as saying X?", and they would have written back saying either "sure, that sounds fine" or "no, use this quote instead: ...".
  - ericd 15y ago
    You might be right, though I would think that even a PR person would have tried to introduce some variability to make it sound believable. I don't really know how these things typically work.
- lurker14 15y ago
  Paging Matt Cutts. Web Spam cleanup in Aisle 3. Paging Matt Cutts The "See more results like this" SERP collapsed-grouping display is needed on that page.
- baconner 15y ago
  I've long suspected there's some kind of madlibs for PR that all these companies use.
- Calamitous 15y ago
  I, for one, welcome our new handset overlords...
- yangtheman 15y ago
  I read the responses, and I felt exactly the same way. The news has been shared with the partners beforehand and all PR responses have been choreographed. I don't know what they would do exactly, though, since Android is the best mobile OS choice they have. Can't touch IOS. Windows Mobile sucks. Symbian is going away. Not an easy place to be.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  And do you think the PR guys asked them for a quote? No they did not. They wrote the quote and then asked the company if they would 'approve' it. (sort of quote by inference) I was exposed early on to this when a PR person wrote up a quote, attributed it to me, and then ran it through the PR department where I worked who 'signed off' on the release although no one actually asked me if I had made that quote. When I protested they said "Oh it sounded like something you would say, should we seek a retraction?" It was a hell of an introduction to this 'known technique' in the PR world. I told them that in the future they had to clear any quote attributed to me, through me, which they were happy to do. So my speculation is that the PR guys wrote these quotes, asked the partner's PR firm to approve, and they did, because none of the CEOs/GMs whatever have that flag set in their PR department that says "check with me before you approve something with a quote from me in it."

intended 15y ago

GOOG is a s/w company and not a manufacturer. The ability to integrate both sides of such different firms is very difficult. This puts both points b), c) and e) off the table. Point f)? I'm not sure, but I really hope that they can do something while looking at exactly how it will play out on a phone. They did try this with the Nexus though, and that was not something which worked out perfectly imho. M&A's have a tendency to be non-accretive to the purchaser. This looks like its going to be similar for Google.

lukeschlather 15y ago
>This puts both points b), c) and e) off the table. I don't see where you're coming from on b/c. Motorola makes great hardware - it would be hard to improve that. What Google can do is provide phones with unlocked bootloaders and the standard "Android Experience" UI. Google can make Motorola better precisely because they are a software company, and they can use that core competency to let Motorola focus on what they do best. (At the moment, Motorola shoots themselves in the foot by writing so much software.) On e, yes, I think the hardware division will have to stay divided from Google.
- cube13 15y ago
  >I don't see where you're coming from on b/c. Motorola makes great hardware - it would be hard to improve that. That's exactly the problem. Google, as a software company, doesn't currently have to worry about a lot of the issues that the hardware side of Motorola does, like supply chain management(both on the production and disposal side), dealing with retail outlets, directly dealing with cellular service providers as a device manufacturer, governmental agency compliance for hardware, etc. Google doesn't have really any experience with this, which means they absolutely need to keep the people that are currently doing those jobs. Also, from what I've heard from people that used to work there, Motorola's engineering culture is on the "very corporate" side of things. Integrating that into Google's rather loose culture will be difficult, I think. This is especially important because both sides will need to be working with each other very closely. Best case, Google doesn't change much, and integrates Motorola's hardware chain well. However, if they do exert a lot of control over the hardware side, quality could decline in the short term as the issues I mentioned above get worked out. Overall, I think it's a much stronger position for both companies. Motorola gets Google's software expertise, and Google gets Motorola's hardware engineering and supply chain.

runjake 15y ago

Sure Google is not perfect, but all other companies have the motto: "Money first, morals second." You're kidding, right? By law, this is the modus operandi of any publicly-traded company. If you think any different, you've simply fallen for their rhetoric.

lallysingh 15y ago
Not when the founders are major stockholders. They won't sue themselves.
- mbreese 15y ago
  They still have a feduciary responsibility to the minority stock holders.
  - r00fus 15y ago
    Actually, IIRC, there ARE no minority shareholders with voting interest. ALL of it is locked up within the triumvirate (Page, Brin, Schmidt). Whether this gives them any more leeway isn't clear to me, but Google is quite non-standard as far as corporate structure.
    - william42 15y ago
      There are two classes of stock. The class that Page, Brin, and Schmidt have has ten times as much voting power.
nknight 15y ago
The law absolutely does not require corporations to make decisions on any particular basis, and definitely does not require them to put profits first. Please stop spreading this myth, it confuses people and gives amoral executives an "out" for their horrible behavior. Fiduciary duty is an abstract concept that basically means a duty of trust. If shareholders are told that profits are secondary, you don't violate trust by not putting them first.
15y ago

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Given that Samsung and HTC have already embraced openness as a policy having "googarola" on that same team will add even more momentum to it. Even more when you consider that arduino is the basis for android accessories. In the near-term it's almost irrelevant if android were a worse experience and android devices were less capable (I don't think that's the case, which is all the better) because ultimately it's about development momentum and the OODA loop. If the android platform can congeal a larger critical mass of talented hackers and developers and they can get into a tighter and stronger feedback-develop-release cycle on their software and their hardware then they will beat the pants off of any of their competition.

malbs 15y ago

In regards to point e) I'm not sure how "Don't be Evil" applies to a company that makes bomb components and missile guidance systems.

malbs 15y ago
Unless of course the first thing GOOG does is wipe out all the IP and Patents owned by Motorola that have anything to do with... you know, killing people.
donaq 15y ago
Making bomb components and missile guidance systems is not evil in itself. If only evil men made and used weapons, the world would be in very bad shape. I'm not arguing that the specific weapons mentioned weren't used for evil, I'm just making a general point that all the peaceful people in the world can afford to be that way because there are guns protecting them, so it's not as simple as weapons == evil.
groby_b 15y ago
I'm not sure they're part of Motorola Mobility...
- malbs 15y ago
  Ahh you're right, classic me, I just parsed the headline and assumed it was the whole company, not just the mobile division.
  - groby_b 15y ago
    No worries - I did the same thing :) I just had the benefit of already having digested a first wave of news when I finally came to the comments here.
ecaradec 15y ago
Given what they've done with self driving cars, they could do awesome missiles.