Monday, August 15th 2011

Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, "Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers."

Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, "This transaction offers significant value for Motorola Mobility's stockholders and provides compelling new opportunities for our employees, customers, and partners around the world. We have shared a productive partnership with Google to advance the Android platform, and now through this combination we will be able to do even more to innovate and deliver outstanding mobility solutions across our mobile devices and home businesses."

Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, said, "We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem. However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices."

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility's stockholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.
Source: Motorola Media Center
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36 Comments on Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

#26
micropage7
yep, and with motorola google has bigger chance to boost android better than before
about samsung and the other i guess its like racing they have factory team and sattelite team
google has taken motorola as factory team the other would follow as satelite team
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#27
dir_d
Google said Motorola should remain a separate entity. I really think they bought them to fight Apple in the patent war. Motorola has some very nice patents and i dont think this will effect HTC or Samsung in anyway. This might actually improve android for HTC and Samsung because of the patents google has now acquired.
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#28
bucketface
Seems like Motorola is looking to concentrate on it's industrial business.
KreijHere's an interesting take on this ...
Quote:
A very interesting move by Google this morning.... big quote
while things could go that way it is probably more profitable for google to keep HTC, samsung, etc in the game. How much does google actually make off of each of these comapies handsets?
Ideally Google will be releasing a Handset ala the Nexus series and force the other companies to provide a certain standard for their products. eg. more frequent updates.. longer support for updates, minimum level of hardware specs etc. by providing a specific quality for their Motorola products.
Another big reason for this buy is lots of patents. now they have a better position to settle the patent litigations out of court.
Posted on Reply
#29
1c3d0g
Guys, remember that Motorola also produces set-top boxes for many Cable companies...do I see a Google TV link in there somewhere? ;) Also, if many of the other cellphone manufacturers object, Google *could* quietly shut down the hardware cellphone division of Motorola and keep the rest of the company humming along nicely. And they now have a HUGE patent war chest to defend themselves against any miserable company trying to sue them.

I love Google! :cool:
Posted on Reply
#30
Damn_Smooth
Maybe they'll start patent trolling Apple. Give them a taste of their own medicine.
Posted on Reply
#31
theeldest
I really don't see this as google trying to compete with HTC and Samsung in the hardware space. The issue is about patents. Microsoft and Apple are starting to charge HTC and Samsung licensing fees on the patents they own.

Those fees start to make Android handsets more expensive than Windows or Apple devices. With Motorola's patent portfolio (which is obscenely huge) Google now has clout to keep MS and Apple from charging fees or they can do the same thing.

This should keep phone prices low because fewer license fee will be charged. (or prices skyrocket as they play one giant game of chicken).

It's not about hardware, though. It's about patents.
Posted on Reply
#32
[H]@RD5TUFF
mdbrotha03Did not see this coming
Same, but I can't say I am not happily surprised.
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#33
Steevo
This us about a business move, google sees a good oppertunity to purchase a well known vendor at a good price and moto needs cash. Google gets to keep their reputation untarnished with android by removing the biggest hurdle to free develpment out there, a software/hardware conglomeratr that has a woody for everything locked. I have beenwondering to myself for some time if the reason moto left so much locked is their security keys were not the same across multiple platforms, and unlocking one and getting access to the key would allow other moto peoducts to be unlocked, such as cable boxes.
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#34
[H]@RD5TUFF
SteevoThis us about a business move, google sees a good oppertunity to purchase a well known vendor at a good price and moto needs cash. Google gets to keep their reputation untarnished with android by removing the biggest hurdle to free develpment out there, a software/hardware conglomeratr that has a woody for everything locked. I have beenwondering to myself for some time if the reason moto left so much locked is their security keys were not the same across multiple platforms, and unlocking one and getting access to the key would allow other moto peoducts to be unlocked, such as cable boxes.
That's my take on it as well, this just means the possibilty for more feature rich phones and other media devices, Apple can't be happy about this.
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#35
xBruce88x
i'd love to see an Atrix II with better laptop dock. I got an atrix and hooked it up to the dock at a bestbuy mobile store. It was nice to have a keyboard but i couldn't set the keys as controls for games. that and when using tegra games it was slow as hell for w/e reason on the larger screen. would probably run better if it switched to the game res rather than stretching it to fit the higher res of the monitor. some videos stored on my phone played rather slowly too. but for web browsing it was nice. if they made an Atrix II with one of the newer 1.5ghz quads and w/e nvidia comes out with as a sequel to tegra then it would probably be better on the dock thing... and firefox for the browser of an android laptop dock? really?
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#36
Wile E
Power User
SteevoI saw this, Motorola has been disillusioning customers with mobile devices and the "open" platform for awhile. They almost went under but their great Droid helped them through, but their not so great policies for the rest of the world, and many other devices showing their true shit brown souls helped them to have a non stop barrage of insults on their facebook Europe page, and on most of their forums.


Motofail is almost a household name for those of us that paid hundreds of dollars for "the phone without compromise" only to learn how the compromising was of our ass, they sold a locked phone that took months and months, to fix issues with a phone that was sold with no flash and other major issues.

Tis why I now own Samsung Galaxy II instead of another moto product.
Yeah, my Atrix is android, but is still locked. Pissed me off when I found out about it. Hopefully I'll get an official bootloader unlock out of this.
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