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Following a takeover bid that has lasted several months and raised a few eyebrows, even attracting the scrutiny of the Chinese government, Google now officially owns Motorola Mobility. As many people will be aware, Motorola were the first company to produce a mobile phone back in the 1970s and have been a major driving force in the industry ever since. Until now Google has only been involved with the software side of things, occasionally teaming up with manufacturers like HTC and Samsung to produce Nexus phones, but not really producing any hardware of its own.
Google has been keen to stress, not least to its Android supporting partners, that Motorola will remain a separate business from Google’s other interests, including Android. Because of this Motorola will not get special treatment regarding Android updates or new versions and will still licence the OS just like other manufacturers.
Nonetheless, this may go some way to helping Google with its recently announced plans to produce Nexus phones at greater frequency – with several phones per year being considered. The most recent Nexus phone, the Galaxy Nexus, has been a huge hit because of the advantages it has over Android phones from other manufacturers.
Motorola was one Android vendor that had a particularly bad track record for updating its Android phones, with a recent announcement that a large number of US phones would not see an update causing quite a lot of anger stateside. Google’s takeover of Motorola is also likely to cause a lot of anger with Motorola’s employees, as around 30% stand to face redundancy as Google streamlines its newly acquired business.
Google purchased Motorola for a hefty $12.5 billion so it is no wonder that it is looking to make some savings now that the deal has been finalised. Despite what Google says, the acquisition of Motorola will allow it to create a greater hardware / software symbiosis like Apple has been able to do with its iPhones, leading to greater efficiency, less problems and faster software updates.
Source Google