6 ms·

Interesting set of moves by Google. Few observations 1. A lot of people are fixated on the sales prices and the $9.5 Billion “loss”. Contrary to gloating from

by npalli 13y ago

Interesting set of moves by Google. Few observations 1. A lot of people are fixated on the sales prices and the $9.5 Billion “loss”. Contrary to gloating from Apple fans, looks like in the final analysis Google paid about $3 Billion for “majority” of the Motorola Patents. Not a terrible deal. 2. Apart from the patents, one reason for the Motorola purchase was to provide some competition to Samsung. Given Samsung’s dominance of the Android platform it was going to be problematic for Google in the future. This deal now creates a solid competitor to Samsung. Lenovo is one of the very few Chinese companies that have created a global brand. There are a lot of fantastic Chinese companies that are big but are unknown outside of China. So, with the Lenovo angle, Google gets a strong competitor to Samsung and also a partner to compete within the Chinese market (companies like Xiaomi which are non-Google Android). 3. The mobile market is like the PC market circa 2004, that is it is maturing and has a few years before brutal competition is going to drive down all profits. The future is connected devices, robotics and other ‘intelligent’ machines. With the Nest and Boston Dynamics purchase, Google has the team and the chance to build the next great hardware/software stack ground up and be well positioned for the big markets in the next decade. All in all, good set of moves for Google. Alas, Apple in contrast reminds me of Microsoft in the early ‘00s. Hugely profitable but fixated on the current ‘ecosystem’ and extending and controlling it. Microsoft’s fixation on the windows ecosystem proved to a huge distraction and ultimately made them miss the internet/advertising and the mobile markets both which proved to be gigantic compared to the windows franchise.

newleaf 13y ago
There could be an additional benefit to Google of having an Android maker that is also strong in the enterprise world (complementing Samsung's consumer strength).
10feet 13y ago
> Contrary to gloating from Apple fans This isn't necessary, and cheapens a good point. > This deal now creates a solid competitor to Samsung. Samsung has solid competitors with strong global brands. You have Sony, which has been around for a long time. You also have LG, HTC, and a lot of other lesser known brands. You have Amazon, BN in the Tablet space. Not sure what the cheap shots at Apple and Apple fans have to do with this discussion.
- nb1981 13y ago
  Everything has to be partisan now. Shame.
- michaelcampbell 13y ago
  Then maybe you could have just ignored it; you effectively Streisand Effected it for me with 2 of your 3 paragraphs devoted to that.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Some quick searches indicates that Huawei and LG have ~4-5% of the market each, and Sony and HTC around 7% or so each. Meanwhile Samsung is above 30% Motorola + Lenovo has a shot at 11%-12%. So no, Samsung doesn't really have any really solid competitors. Especially given that most of the above are not making much - if any - money on their Android phones at the moment.
blinkingled 13y ago
>With the Nest and Boston Dynamics purchase, Google has the team and the chance to build the next great hardware/software stack ground up and be well positioned for the big markets in the next decade They are keeping the Motorola Advanced Technology Group as well - the one responsible for project Ara (modular cell phones) and password tattoos.
- poslathian 13y ago
  Do you have a source for this?
  - blinkingled 13y ago
    http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/google-keeps-motorolas-advanced-technology-group-home-of-the-modular-phone-and-password-tattoo/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/google-keeps-motorolas-adva...
    - poslathian 13y ago
      great, thanks!
toyg 13y ago
>Microsoft’s fixation [...] ultimately made them miss the internet/advertising and the mobile markets Actually, MS was quite a pioneer in the mobile space. Their mistakes were in execution (they went after pricy enterprise tools like PDAs rather than consumer-grade phones) and timing (technology simply wasn't ready -- they made a big push on early tablets before capacitive touchscreens changed the whole landscape). Gates could see where things were going, he wasn't "distracted"; he bailed on MS when when it was just about clear that the company wasn't running towards new markets as fast as it should have.
- camus2 13y ago
  > technology simply wasn't ready no, Windows Mobile was a horrible os, that's all.They tried to port a desktop ui to mobile,it sucked , then they tried to port a mobile ui to desktop(metro), it still sucked. The problem is Microsoft itself,nothing else.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Windows Mobile may have been a horrible OS, but at the time the main competition was not iOS type devices, but Palm Pilot, Psion/Symbian and the like, and the devices of the time - regardless of OS - were horribly hampered by hardware (I spent '99 working on a tablet running Linux - we got something halfway decent for the time, but imagine a tablet with resistive touch-screen, 486 level cpu and 32MB RAM, at the cost of an iPad). I agree that if they'd tried to enter that market from scratch after the iPhone, with Windows Mobile, they'd still have problems. But at that time, Windows Mobile did not look all that bad for the market "everyone" were targeting, and the competing OS's were abysmal abominations to work with (I spent '98 in part working on an app for Palm Pilot; I'm still trying to forget the memory management horrors)
  - toyg 13y ago
    >Windows Mobile was a horrible os The fact that you're referring to it by its late name, rather than the early ones (WinCE / PocketPC) I think is indicative of your perspective. Early WinCE competed with Palm and (what would have become) Symbian; because of incredibly low-res screens, people were supposed to use stylus pens. There was little research on usability of mobile devices to build on. Devices were terribly underpowered, memory was much more expensive. Believe me, for the times, a (colorscreen!) PocketPC device was not as terrible as you think, considering overall constraints. This was almost a decade before iOS.

by npalli 13y ago

newleaf 13y ago

There could be an additional benefit to Google of having an Android maker that is also strong in the enterprise world (complementing Samsung's consumer strength).

10feet 13y ago

> Contrary to gloating from Apple fans This isn't necessary, and cheapens a good point. > This deal now creates a solid competitor to Samsung. Samsung has solid competitors with strong global brands. You have Sony, which has been around for a long time. You also have LG, HTC, and a lot of other lesser known brands. You have Amazon, BN in the Tablet space. Not sure what the cheap shots at Apple and Apple fans have to do with this discussion.

nb1981 13y ago
Everything has to be partisan now. Shame.
michaelcampbell 13y ago
Then maybe you could have just ignored it; you effectively Streisand Effected it for me with 2 of your 3 paragraphs devoted to that.
vidarh 13y ago
Some quick searches indicates that Huawei and LG have ~4-5% of the market each, and Sony and HTC around 7% or so each. Meanwhile Samsung is above 30% Motorola + Lenovo has a shot at 11%-12%. So no, Samsung doesn't really have any really solid competitors. Especially given that most of the above are not making much - if any - money on their Android phones at the moment.

blinkingled 13y ago

>With the Nest and Boston Dynamics purchase, Google has the team and the chance to build the next great hardware/software stack ground up and be well positioned for the big markets in the next decade They are keeping the Motorola Advanced Technology Group as well - the one responsible for project Ara (modular cell phones) and password tattoos.

poslathian 13y ago
Do you have a source for this?
- blinkingled 13y ago
  http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/google-keeps-motorolas-advanced-technology-group-home-of-the-modular-phone-and-password-tattoo/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/google-keeps-motorolas-adva...
  - poslathian 13y ago
    great, thanks!

toyg 13y ago

>Microsoft’s fixation [...] ultimately made them miss the internet/advertising and the mobile markets Actually, MS was quite a pioneer in the mobile space. Their mistakes were in execution (they went after pricy enterprise tools like PDAs rather than consumer-grade phones) and timing (technology simply wasn't ready -- they made a big push on early tablets before capacitive touchscreens changed the whole landscape). Gates could see where things were going, he wasn't "distracted"; he bailed on MS when when it was just about clear that the company wasn't running towards new markets as fast as it should have.

camus2 13y ago
> technology simply wasn't ready no, Windows Mobile was a horrible os, that's all.They tried to port a desktop ui to mobile,it sucked , then they tried to port a mobile ui to desktop(metro), it still sucked. The problem is Microsoft itself,nothing else.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Windows Mobile may have been a horrible OS, but at the time the main competition was not iOS type devices, but Palm Pilot, Psion/Symbian and the like, and the devices of the time - regardless of OS - were horribly hampered by hardware (I spent '99 working on a tablet running Linux - we got something halfway decent for the time, but imagine a tablet with resistive touch-screen, 486 level cpu and 32MB RAM, at the cost of an iPad). I agree that if they'd tried to enter that market from scratch after the iPhone, with Windows Mobile, they'd still have problems. But at that time, Windows Mobile did not look all that bad for the market "everyone" were targeting, and the competing OS's were abysmal abominations to work with (I spent '98 in part working on an app for Palm Pilot; I'm still trying to forget the memory management horrors)
- toyg 13y ago
  >Windows Mobile was a horrible os The fact that you're referring to it by its late name, rather than the early ones (WinCE / PocketPC) I think is indicative of your perspective. Early WinCE competed with Palm and (what would have become) Symbian; because of incredibly low-res screens, people were supposed to use stylus pens. There was little research on usability of mobile devices to build on. Devices were terribly underpowered, memory was much more expensive. Believe me, for the times, a (colorscreen!) PocketPC device was not as terrible as you think, considering overall constraints. This was almost a decade before iOS.