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Motorola Mobility's shareholders approve Google merger

By | November 18, 2011, 6:19am PST

Summary: Motorola Mobility’s shareholders have overwhelmingly agreed to a Google merger. But the U.S. Justice Dept. still remains silent on the issue.

Motorola Mobility has been given the green light to merge with Google by its shareholders during a special meeting on Thursday.

99 percent of the shares voting at yesterday’s meeting of stockholders voted in favour of the adoption of the merger agreement, representing nearly three-quarters of Motorola Mobility’s total outstanding shares.

The two companies are now a step closer to making the merger happen, with Google currently expecting the $12.5 billion acquisition to go ahead by early 2012.

Sanjay Jha, chairman and chief executive of Motorola Mobility said, “We look forward to working with Google to realize the significant value this combination will bring to our stockholders and all the new opportunities it will provide our dedicated employees, customers, and partners”.

By bringing Google and Motorola Mobility together, it will allow the smartphone maker to team up with the mobile operating system creator and search giant to create an ecosystem for Android, which currently holds the first-place spot as the most popular mobile device operating system in the U.S. and the UK.

The move will also enable Google to acquire a number of key patents from Motorola, which will bolster the company’s position as it continues to fight legal disputes over alleged patent infringement.

But Google recently stated that the Motorola Mobility arm be treated as a third-party smartphone maker, rather than being made a subsidiary of the larger search giant’s company

Google also said that it would not favour its acquisition over any other Android partner.

So far, it has been quiet on the anti-competitive, antitrust front, with no company publicly denouncing the merger. But the U.S. Justice Dept. will still need to approve the merger, but looks so far at this stage the deal will go ahead.

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Topics

Shareholder, Google Inc., Merger, Mobility, Motorola Inc., Motorola Mobility, Mobile Security, Financial Accounting, Wireless And Mobility, Finance, Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Disclosure

Zack Whittaker

I worked briefly with Microsoft UK in 2006 but no longer have any connection with the company. Regardless, I remain impartial and unbiased in my views.

I don't hold any stock or shares, investments or industrial secrets in any company, but have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of UK and U.S. organisations, whose names I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was involved with Kent Union, the University of Kent's student union, undertaking voluntary, non-salaried, elected positions between early 2009 and mid-2010.

No other company, body, government department, non-governmental organisation or third sector organisation employs me or pays me a salary in any capacity whatsoever.

As a freelance journalist, whenever expenses are given and taken by a company that is not CBS Interactive, these will be disclosed in each relevant post to ensure transparency.

I currently work with a UK law enforcement unit, but this is an entirely separate position which bears no connection to other work.

(Updated: 23rd October 2011)

Biography

Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

After studying criminology at university, though still in his early-20's, he has already had a series unconventional work and voluntary positions. He has worked with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (which he suffers from), has given lectures on the nature of disabilities in the public community, and occasionally ends up speaking on television and radio discussing the events of the day.

He first had academic work published at the age of 22, then still an undergraduate, and has been cited by a wide range of publications: from CNN, the Huffington Post, AllThingsDigital, The Atlantic Wire and CBS News.

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RE: Motorola Mobility's shareholders approve Google merger
anono Updated - 18th Nov
@William Farrell
The truth is out indeed. Would you look at that, I even posted a link to it.

First, Patent infringement is not theft so even if I take Microsoft's side (that Android infringes on patents that they try their best to not reveal), then no one is still stealing. Second, Google doesn't sell hardware thus even if Patent infringement was stealing (which it is not) and even if MS had a valid case (which is looking less and less likely, see link above) then Google still hasn't stolen. Learn the basics before you make yourself look more foolish.

Also, I don't like our current patent system and I think it's pretty much impossible to make anything without infringing some patents which I consider bogus. Still, compared to MS, I applaud Oracle and Apple for the openness they have shown in going after Android. They've come out and said what they said Android infringes and allowed the world to judge it's validity.
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RE: Motorola Mobility's shareholders approve Google merger
Socratesfoot 18th Nov
They should open up a patent repository, allow people\companies to submit permission for using various patents for defense against MS and Apple's BS. Build a giant legal wall that these two companies can't bypass and open the use up for anyone wanting to market Android OS.
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Google doesn't want that. They want to keep their own patents to themselves
William Farrell 18th Nov
@Socratesfoot
while using everybody else's patents when it suits them.

Google is hardly what anyone would call a benign and caring company.
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RE: Motorola Mobility's shareholders approve Google merger
anono Updated - 18th Nov
@William Farrell
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/barnes-noble-challenges-microsofts-infringement-claims-with-43-pages-of-prior-art/16382?tag=content;search-results-river

Microsoft's R&D department is full of lawyers who try and patent other people's innovation and then use their financial muscle (obtained from monopolies) to extort fees. I certainly don't blame Google for exposing them, but Google should have seen that Microsoft would be quite clever in their extortion by going great lengths to make sure the public wouldn't know of these bogus patents. Regardless, the truth is starting to come out. The DoJ should have realized that a decade of oversight does not necessarily stop them from being anti-competitive any more than a criminal all of a sudden stops being a criminal after spending a decade in jail.
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So. It doesn't change Google's stance on this.
William Farrell 18th Nov
@anono

And as we can see with code in Android and what not, the truth is already out. Google's R&D department is full of lawyers who try and patent/steel other people's innovation and then use their financial muscle giving away other people's IP.

That is the one undeniable truth here, and the Oracle lawsuit proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Motorola Mobility's shareholders approve Google merger
anono Updated - 18th Nov
@William Farrell
The truth is out indeed. Would you look at that, I even posted a link to it.

First, Patent infringement is not theft so even if I take Microsoft's side (that Android infringes on patents that they try their best to not reveal), then no one is still stealing. Second, Google doesn't sell hardware thus even if Patent infringement was stealing (which it is not) and even if MS had a valid case (which is looking less and less likely, see link above) then Google still hasn't stolen. Learn the basics before you make yourself look more foolish.

Also, I don't like our current patent system and I think it's pretty much impossible to make anything without infringing some patents which I consider bogus. Still, compared to MS, I applaud Oracle and Apple for the openness they have shown in going after Android. They've come out and said what they said Android infringes and allowed the world to judge it's validity.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Motorola Mobility's shareholders approve Google merger
thesuperstitions@... 18th Nov
Include Intellectual Ventures and Oracle in that list of patent trolls...

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