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I wonder about this too. Google made those bizarre bids like $3.149b, almost like they weren't really into it. They could have just been feigning interest to dr

by Osiris 15y ago

I wonder about this too. Google made those bizarre bids like $3.149b, almost like they weren't really into it. They could have just been feigning interest to drive up the price. They probably would have been happy to acquire the patents for a good price, but they clearly already had another (more important) acquisition in the pipeline. The Motorola deal I think is a lot better because it's not just patents, it's a whole hardware company with hands in a lot of pies that Google is in, like cell phones and set-top boxes. I think they'll get a much better return on their investment into Motorola than they would out of Nortel patents.

nknight 15y ago
This is strange, since you basically agree with me, on the overall point, but I flatly do not understand people who think Google made "bizarre" bids. What is bizarre about a fundamentally engineering-focused company bidding pi? Why is it impossible to both take something seriously, and have a little fun? It's like the "work shouldn't be fun" crowd -- why the heck not? It wasn't the first time they did something like that. Their IPO was intended to raise e billion dollars. And why shouldn't it be? Using fundamental mathematical constants may be unusual, but it's absolutely no more arbitrary than boring "round" numbers with a bunch of zeroes, and it's like a big geek flag waving in the wind.