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Google's coalition speaks with one voice

By | August 15, 2011, 9:22am PDT

Summary: This morning, Google announced its plans to acquire Motorola Mobility. It also published statements of support from four key mobile partners who are also Motorola competitors. It’s remarkable how much those statements sound alike. See for yourself.

I was as stunned as anyone by this morning’s news that Google plans to buy Motorola Mobility for some $12.5 billion.

My first reaction, on Twitter, was this:

It took a couple hours, but eventually the partners spoke, and Google published their statements in full. You’ll notice immediately that each statement is strikingly similar to the others. This reformat really brings out the similarities, don’t you think?

“Committed to defending Android and its partners”? With this merger, Google will presumably become the new lead defendant in Microsoft’s patent infringement case against Motorola. (In fact, Microsoft and Google have already mixed it up directly in this lawsuit, accusations flying in both directions as recently as last week.) And there’s an Apple lawsuit against Motorola in Europe.

A vigorous defense and a favorable outcome in those cases would be comforting to the other partners. But I suspect this coordinated wording means Google has agreed to intervene in those other suits as well. Have they gone so far as to indemnify Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, and LG in the many legal actions brought against them for Android-related activities?

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Topics

Coalition, Google Inc., Voice, Ed Bott, Mobility, Motorola Inc., Mobile Security, Wireless And Mobility, Telecommunications

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.

Disclosure

Ed Bott

Ed Bott is a freelance technical journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis.

Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books written prior to fall 2011 have been distributed by Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education) and by Microsoft Press. As of November 2011, Ed is a partner in the independent publishing company Fair Trade Digital Exchange, which exclusively publishes his books.

On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate.

Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMware. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than two years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth.

Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Biography

Ed Bott

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.

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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
henningp@... 18th Aug
@anono You're very wrong. The base OS itself is free, but Marketplace, GMail, Maps, etc. are for-pay licenses. They're not part of the base Android OS. If you ever rooted an Android device, you'd know this, as the "Google apps" package is a separate installable.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
AdnanPirota 15th Aug
of course Google will defend his partners, unlike the Axes of Evil that steals partners code and include it in its own OS and than dump the partners ...
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
bitcrazed 15th Aug
@AdnanPirota ... "steals partners code and include it in its own OS and than dump the partners." ... what? Like Google did to Oracle re Java?
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Anyway, this will not help to defend Android from Apple and its multi-touch
DeRSSS 15th Aug
@AdnanPirota: ... GUI/gestures patents.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
owlnet 15th Aug
It?s not a ?happy? reaction. Google is now openly mocking the so called ?Open Handset Alliance? buy pulling down its pants and showing the back.
Do the hardware vendors trust Google? The answer is a resounding NO. They may hang around for a while until they find a profitable platform, most likely WP7. Does this acquisition solve all of androids patent issues? The answer is again a NO. Microsoft and Oracle will chase it with full force. Also for MS it?s fundamental for its future product success that it has to prove in court that android violates its patents. The chances are more that android will fall off from the cliff pretty soon.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Peter Perry 15th Aug
@owlnet They're openly mocking you, who said, "2015 Android won't exist, mark my words"!

Of course this scares you because you've been openly touting your faith in Apple to beat up on an unarmed man and it turns out that unarmed man had a sword in his cane!
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But is that voice strongly positive or just luke-warm?
easson 15th Aug
Google would have informed its Android hardware partners of this move weeks, if not months ago. That left those partners a long time to come up with positive comments on it.

That's not the real question, though. Do those statements represent strong enthusiasm for the acquisition, or are they just formal statements that they felt compelled to make? My vote is on the latter.

The Motorola Mobility acquistion represents the balance between one hugely positive thing (patents) for Google and another hugely negative thing (long-term competition with its own customers, the mobile hardware manufacturers).

Google obviously felt the overall balance was in its favour, as judging by the fact that they paid a 63% premium over market price for the patents.

The marketplace has their own, immediate, short-term judgement. Today's large spike in Nokia's stock price (and the smaller jump in Microsoft's) suggest that they think the deal on balance is not a good one for Google. (Of course, I would be the last one to suggest that the stock market is any good at judging things.)
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Peter Perry 15th Aug
@easson Think about it, HTC was found infringing and they remained quite about Google... Samsung has an injunction slapped on them and they never once called out Google...

Doesn't this sound like two companies who know Google was working on some stuff?

Oh and Google was pretty Silent themselves leading up to this.
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"positive or luke-warm?" Are you kidding?
matthew_maurice 15th Aug
@easson Clearly they're just repeating what Google told them to say. All four statements are essentially identical. They could have just issued a single joint-statement with all four signatures.

These guys know they've just been screwed, but they're going to play along until they're sure just how badly they've been shafted.
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Message has been deleted.
microsoftisaboatonfirewithaholeinit. Updated - 15th Aug
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
GoodThings2Life 15th Aug
@microsoftisaboatonfirewithaholeinit ... LOL!
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Peter Perry 15th Aug
@microsoftisaboatonfirewithaholeinit.

Apple's definition of a partner...

Partner - One from whom you steal code, money and ideas that you then patent yourself.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
taabello@... Updated - 15th Aug
sounds like they all reading from the same script... well only time will tell because buying up moto patents does nothing about apple and MS patents which have been infringed upon
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Peter Perry 15th Aug
@taabello@... And what if this turns out to be a coalition like the Nortel and Novell case? Of course the FTC might object as the others are pretty big already and adding Moto to their group could be seen as a problem.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Return_of_the_jedi Updated - 15th Aug
Yeah, Ed, it's your job to put a spin on it.

PS. Yes the partners were mad.
But they were already mad. Not the ones you think. Clue. The ones that wanted them to bid on Nortel's patents with them. Give up?
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Peter Perry 15th Aug
@Return_of_the_jedi It was Novell, they never invited them to the Nortel bids.
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Speaking of spinning
William Farrell 15th Aug
@Return_of_the_jedi

you know what I mean. happy
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
TheCat123 Updated - 15th Aug
...if you ever have dealed with Asian companies, you will know that those polite statements are nothing more than polite statements. It's the polite Asian way to say "F*ck You"... Those "partners" even didn't bother to write their own statements. This is very bad actually. They are either totally pissed or don't care.....
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
Peter Perry 15th Aug
@TheCat123 Companies look out for their interests, If they thought anything of this they would have said something. Did you forget about Samsung's CEO making very candid statements at the launch of the iPad 2?
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
ZazieLavender 15th Aug
@TheCat123 You are right about the Asians being that way. It could easily be a veiled insult. But, then again do you really think those big CEOs would jeopardize their company's well being if they knew that people KNOW that already?

They aren't top dogs at their company for no reason at all, especially considering that politics at their companies probably makes politics at American companies look like child's play.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
LoverockDavidson 15th Aug
We will see how long HTC, Samsung, and LG stay partners with Google. They are taking a very minimal approach to congratulating Google. In the end this is only going to hurt the oems.
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Dang right they're on board
ArtInvent 15th Aug
Look, the patent threat is very real. Samsung for one has had it's shipments of tablets blocked in more than one country by Apple's patent lawsuits. HTC is also under attack by Apple. Those are the two biggest Android partners. In this climate, the only way to battle that is to arm yourself with more patents. Apple & MS have done that with the Nortel acquisition and other moves. Apple is attacking the mobile technology and MS is attacking Linux. Google needed to respond.

It really does boil down to this: to defend Samsung, HTC, and all the other players against Apple and MS, Google needs Motorola's patent portfolio, among other things. They really have no choice but to acquire more companies with strong patent catalogs. Put in this light, I would think that Samsung and the rest may be cheering them on.
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Google's purchase will not indemnify others
wackoae 15th Aug
@ArtInvent Sorry to destroy your delucions, but the purchase does NOTHING to help Samsung or HTC at all.

In the best case scenario for Google, the best they can achieve is patent protection for MotoMob products. Everybody else will be on their own, unless Google not only legally licenses any and all technology/patent Android violates but it must also obtain the legal right to re-license the technology to others.
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"We welcome Google's commitment to defending Android and its partners."
Userama 15th Aug
"This is a recording. What can possibly go wrong......go wrong.......go wrong.......go wrong.......go wrong......go wrong.......go wrong......go wrong......go wrong.......go wrong.......go wrong......go wrong.......go wrong........"
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So these companies will pay Google for Android
William Farrell 15th Aug
so that Google can take that money to allow Motorola to compete against them.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
anono 15th Aug
@William Farrell
These companies don't pay google anything. Rather it seems Google will use Motorola's patents to protect these companies.
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You are so ridiculously wrong
wackoae 15th Aug
@anono #1- Companies pay Google a LICENSE to have Google Marketplace.

#2- Motorola's patents can only be used to protect MotoMob's product, but unless Google has a license to re-license other people's technology/patent the deal will in no way shape or form protect the other Android OEMs.
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
henningp@... 18th Aug
@anono You're very wrong. The base OS itself is free, but Marketplace, GMail, Maps, etc. are for-pay licenses. They're not part of the base Android OS. If you ever rooted an Android device, you'd know this, as the "Google apps" package is a separate installable.
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In the Dutch jurisdiction Apple is caught evidence tampering
Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate 15th Aug
Naughty Apple:
(A Dutch translation)
h-t-t-p://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/107599/apple-levert-onjuist-bewijs-in-zaak-tegen-samsung.html
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RE: Google's coalition speaks with one voice
argon0 Updated - 16th Aug
@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
Good find, I came to a similar conclusion myself. Did you see the actual complaint? And Apple's Community design (CD)?

The CD concerned shows a greater similarity (imho) to the tab than the pad, and yet there are significant differences there anyway (relative thickness, aspect ratio, etc...).

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