So Motorola Mobility is to be acquired by Google Google Inc. 108,22 -0,15 -0,14%. Motorola Mobility is the mobile phone business that was finally spun out of the Motorola parent organisation in January 2011, (leaving Motorola Solutions Unfortunately, we could not get stock quote MSI this time.). In the rest of the article we look to see what the impact is on the Android platform, its partners and if Google could gain by taking on a hardware platform.
Google’s reasons for this are primarily to aquire more patent libraries, although the thought of being able to design the Android hardware platform and deliver it to end users is probably not lost on the other Android platform makers, such as Samsung Unfortunately, we could not get stock quote KRX:005930 this time. (which had been the cosy partner of choice for Google, with the Nexus S), and HTC Unfortunately, we could not get stock quote TPE:2498 this time..
Motorola Mobility makes a good early fit, with the Droid family of phones and the Xoom tablet offering, but it’s hard to see how Google could change the overall organisation to improve the loss that they posted last quarter since they split from Motorola Solutions.
Developing a slew of commodity hardware platforms, and keeping them upto date with the market place (as well as persuading the carriers that the manufacturers phones form part of the carriers phone packages) is a challenge (and not a cheap one), especially since the mobile market is moving faster than ever before.
Perhaps the saving grace is in Motorola Mobility’s other key platform, set-top boxes, to help in the effort to find a real hardware platform on which to launch Google TV?
Notice: The split of the Motorola organisation into the Motorola Mobility [MMI] and Motorola Solutions [MSI] saw the old Motorola [MOT] disappear at the close of the 3rd January 2011