The tech media, and general media as well, is all a flutter about Google acquiring Motorola Mobility (note that this is one part of Motorola, the other being their Solutions group which is 2x the size of Mobility in terms of revenue).
Henry Blodgett thinks it will end as a disaster for Google and my good friend Larry Dignan provides 6 reasons why it makes sense.
I’m with Larry… this is about IP and what Google is doing is acquiring a massive IP war chest that they can use as currency for access to other people’s IP as well as protect their hardware partners with. If I’m HTC and Samsung this will ultimately be a good thing because the IP equivalent of the Allied Powers has just been formed.
Sure the hardware business is very different than software but Microsoft has proven they can co-exist so why can’t Google pull it off? Channel conflict will exist and the onus is on Google to demonstrate to key partners that they are not favoring Motorola but at the end of the day it’s not like these companies were competing on the basis of access to Android features, their competitive position is solely a function of their hardware and integration innovations.
In the end, I like this acquisition for Google and now all attention shifts to Microsoft and RIM.
