Google announced today an acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion dollars, which is the company’s biggest purchase ever. To make things even sweeter, this acquisition gives Google 17,000 new patents relating to wireless technology. The war against Apple just got more interesting.
“Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies,” Google’s chief executive and co-founder Larry Page stated.
Google now has the potential of earning more money by licensing particular technology to other companies, due to the acquisition of over 17,000 patents from Motorola. Google can even initiate lawsuits against other companies over patent violations.
Google can also go head to head with Apple when it comes to manufacturing devices. Buying Motorola will now allow the search engine giant to product its own mobile devices and have hardware/software designed to work flawlessly with each other. Many Apple supporters have attributed this ability for Apple’s success.
This deal between Google and Motorola is still pending a final approval and will be closely scrutinized by US and European regulators, but is expected to be approved. Now, if this deal does not go through, Google has already agreed to pay Motorola $2.5 billion dollars.
Google will be in the ranks of companies who make their own hardware and software like RIM (BlackBerry), HP (webOS), Apple (iPhone), and Microsoft/Nokia.
“There’s tremendous opportunity here. Android is growing like crazy,” Page stated. Google has now added over 17,000 new patents to its currently 2,000 patent portfolio. Anyone want to take guesses on who Google might sue first over patent violations? Apple maybe?
