Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion
(CBS/CNET) - Google has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, the search giant announced Monday. The deal gives Google, developer of the Android mobile operating system, a direct hand in hardware manufacture for the OS.
The deal could lend some stability to the Android marketplace, but also means that Google will be in direct competition with its customers, reports CNET.
While Google creates the operating system, which runs on millions of smartphones and tablets, it has previously not gotten into the design and manufacturing business itself - aside from a few experimental models with partners such as HTC and Samsung.
Motorola will be run as a separate unit of the company, Google Chief Executive Larry Page said on a conference call today. He reiterated the company's commitment to keeping Android open.
The move could also give Google protection in ongoing patent disputes. Over the past few months, major technology players such as Apple and Oracle have sued either Google or its partners in an attempt to slow down their competition and extract licensing fees.
"We believe we'll be in a very good position to protect the Android ecosystem for all of our partners," said David Drummond, Google's chief counsel. He declined to provide more specifics on the company's future legal strategy.
On today's call, Motorola Chief Executive Sanjay Jha touted the company's 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending patents. In addition, he added the company's has many non-essential patents needed to create differentiated services. It's unclear whether the Android partners will get access to those patents, or if it just gets legal cover.