Look, this is about patents more than anything, given that Google ended up not controlling all the patents it needs for Android (which was kind of dumb, but I d

Look, this is about patents more than anything, given that Google ended up not controlling all the patents it needs for Android (which was kind of dumb, but I digress). That directly impacts on Google's partners to build phones for the Android platform. The bigger win in profit and power for Google is to have Android running on as many phones as possible (across multiple manufactures), and not turn this into a zero-sum game from the profits of Motorola alone. Therefore my guess is Google has bought Motorola Mobile simply to keep the business running independently but to ensure the patents are not enforced against the other manufacturers and be able to leverage non-Android patents in the Moto portfolio to wrangle the Android ones it still needs. The value of all this, along with the profits of the business, are probably worth the $12bn price paid.