Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company? No, It Says

The New York Times on the real reason Google purchased Motorola: To make Android proprietary.

... Google is actively positioning the deal not as a means to buy its way into the handset market, but as an opportunity to buy Motorola’s portfolio of patents — some 17,000 of them.

Google’s focus on the patents rather than the handset business makes almost too much sense: Google’s Android operating system has long been “open” and is used by a large ecosystem of handset makers, including Samsung and HTC.

These companies have invested billions of dollars in its Android-based operations and helped make Android more popular than Apple’s mobile operating system. Those handset makers will now have to compete against Google.

“Google can’t admit in public that what they intend to do is eventually make Android proprietary,” said Tavis McCourt, an analyst at Morgan Keegan Equity Research.

Read full article.

emily | 7:24 AM | News, Buzz |
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