
Balls - jordw
http://daringfireball.net/2011/08/balls
======
divtxt
The problem with Gruber is that he'll write a fair analysis only as long as
the fair analysis favors Apple. This means we won't get a fair analysis from
him on things like the patent war and app store high-handedness. Sometimes
he'll do a great piece. Sometimes you have to sift carefully for the bias.
Then there are articles like this - insults, lies and condescension:

\- _Lyons has always been an ass, but when did he get so bitter?_

\- _you just look childish when, only after losing the auction, you then claim
you didn’t really want the thing anyway_ (google never cried sour grapes on
nortel)

\- _Motorola knew they had Google by the balls. ... and they made Google pay
and pay handsomely_

The trick is not to get fooled by the reasonable-sounding phrases like:
_Another way to look at this story..._ and _That’s not to say it wasn’t a
bold, brash move, or even... the right move_.

To those of you discussing Gruber's position on patents: it is the patents
that change position relative to Gruber. :)

 _edit: typos, formatting_

~~~
divtxt
To clarify: a biased Gruber article may actually have valid points. The
problem is that Gruber will only include pro-Apple points.

For example, note that Gruber does NOT point out how the acquisition will
allow Google to do Apple-style seamless hardware/software design.

 _edit: Android - > Google as pointed out by m_eiman below_

~~~
fredoliveira
The interesting bit is that on the conference call they did say that that was
actually _not_ the plan (most likely to keep the other android partners
comfortable). Supposedly their process for Android remains the same and
Motorola will be on the same footing as everyone else when it comes to
software access.

This says that the deal was 100% about patents and nothing else, which in turn
says it wasn't that great of a deal in the first place (considering as they
paid a big premium for the patent portfolio).

But assuming that they break their promise to partners and do what apple does
too by designing both hardware and software together: it would be a good thing
for Google as a phone maker, but a nail on the "Android as open" coffin. I
don't think they'll be able to risk a move like this - angering their partners
and probably breaking Android up -, which just means that the actual impact
this will have on the quality of phones coming from Google _and_ Android as a
mobile OS is slim to none.

~~~
divtxt
Yes, I agree the patents are the main driver.

But I hope they use the opportunity to make great Android handsets. (a role
HTC seemed to take on and then drift away from).

They don't have to worry about their partners. It's not like any of them have
much choice - only Android & WP7.

------
staunch
All I can think about is that Microsoft/Apple blew billions on patents which
forced Google to blow billions more to block their move.

Think how much real innovation $20 billion could have created if it weren't
for the shitty patent system.

~~~
squidbot
This is the most sensible commentary I've seen yet. Fits the "America is
pretty much screwed" articles making the rounds these days. It's actually
pretty damned depressing that $20 billion dollars was spent on a legal game
rather than awesome R&D.

~~~
int3
The money's not gone, it's mostly just transferred from one party to another
-- in this case, from Google to Motorola's shareholders. Of course, many man-
hours are wasted in the legal wrangles, but it certainly doesn't add up to $20
billion dollars of lost productivity.

~~~
philwelch
You can say that about practically any transfer payment. The cost of a
transfer payment is opportunity cost. If Google invested 20 billion dollars in
R&D, we'd have 20 billion dollars of R&D done in _addition_ to someone,
somewhere, having that 20 billion dollars to spend again.

~~~
Confusion
Google bought a lot more than just patents.

------
icarus_drowning
The primary issue that I have with Gruber's argument is that it seems to
reverse some of his more recent assertions about the Google Patent Wars(TM).
Haven't we been hearing from Gruber for months on end how patents were going
to somehow destroy Android (or cripple it, which is basically the same thing)?
Now we're supposed to simply ignore that Google bought 3x the Nortel patents
at 3x the price[1] (Gruber's math, not mine), a move that greatly diminishes
(if not negates) their loss in the Nortel auction? Now we're supposed to focus
on Motorola's problems as a handset manufacturer?

I get that Gruber's mainly going after the over-the-top Lyons piece (a piece
which strikes me as poorly thought out and terribly argued). But it does seem
like this is Gruber's first move toward a pivot away from the importance of
patents in Android vs. Everyone.

You know, those patents that Gruber has been trumpeting for weeks now as the
death knell of Android.

 _Just ignore those_.

[1]: Or cheaper?: See recoiledsnake's comment below:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890038>

~~~
spiffworks
Gruber has for a long time made his living off of propping up strawmen and
beating them down, much to the amusement of his readers. Everyone knows that
Leander Keahney and Dan Lyons are insane, only Gruber goes to the pain of
proving them so, with little insight or value added to the discussion, other
than to incite his audience to gleefully laugh at the stupidity of the
'other'. I can't believe it actually took me so many years to realise this,
but he is off my rss now.

~~~
ellyagg
As you know, it's easy to get backslapped on pro-Google hn by dissing Gruber,
but why not just respond to his analysis instead.

Gruber seems to be right an awful lot for someone so casually vilified. For
example, he took a lot of flack here for defending Apple's move to leave flash
out of mobile safari. I think enough time has passed to make clear that he and
Apple were right.

The anti-Gruber hate looks more like sour grapes every day.

~~~
socratic
Is Gruber right, or has Apple made all the right moves since about 2003? I
think the main complaint by people who see Gruber pieces on HN all the time is
that they argue that he's just an Apple pundit and/or apologist.

Another way of asking this question is, can you name three times that Apple
and Gruber differed, but Gruber was in the right?

~~~
tjogin
Another example, I'm not sure it qualifies, is that Gruber never liked the
brushed metal theme and the inconsistency with which Apple applied it to
different applications.

Apple did eventually retire the brushed metal theme and is getting a bit more
consistent in the styling of their applications. Still some way to go here,
too.

Apple and Gruber has generally diverged in how they think the Apple Human
Interface Guidelines (HIG) should be applied. Gruber has called them out for
not applying it as consistently as they did in the past.

But regarding the HIG, it seems Gruber has resigned and is now calling the HIG
basically defunct.

I think in general, Gruber is _not trying to be_ right/wrong vs Apple, not
trying to offer a strong opinion, except in some unusual cases (see: AppStore
rejections). Mostly, he is just trying to _understand_ Apple, and to offer his
analysis since Apple is famously quiet and other analysts are often clueless
as Apple is a bit of an oddball in the corporate world.

------
tptacek
I would be just fine with banning Daring Fireball from HN, if it meant we
could avoid the biweekly DDoS on HN's intellectual capacity sparked by tens-
deep threads arguing about Gruber's pro-Apple bias.

Only on HN or Reddit is Gruber's pro-Apple stance not the most boring
conceivable topic. It's embarrassing to see ostensibly smart people _pick it
apart_ , as if it was faceted and nuanced.

I myself love Daring Fireball, because Gruber is an f'ing good writer. But I
could give a sh!t about discussing him on HN. Anyone else want to just start
flagging these things off the site? Look at these silly comment threads. You'd
be doing a lot of people a favor by nipping them in the bud.

~~~
recoiledsnake
He seems like a good writer only if you're already under the RDF, otherwise he
comes across as a shallow spin and mudslinging machine and defacto Apple PR.
Example of a predictable and hypocritical post:
[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/15/apple-samsung-
im...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/15/apple-samsung-images)

This is the reason for the disconnect between the HN commenters and the flame
wars. It's just hard for people to understand others almost-bordering-on-
religion obsessions and biases.

While you say you'd be fine with banning DF from HN, we all know which segment
of HN'ers vote up DF, Asymco and some of Marco's stories here, some of which
have very convoluted and shallow arguments/analysis/math which seem cherry
picked and tailor-made to prop up one particular company and don't withstand
five minutes of reasoned analysis.

The problem is that some of these articles are "something that gratifies one's
intellectual curiosity" (from the HN guidelines) to a group of people rooting
for a company and totally shallow drivel to others, so no wonder it's all a
flamefest that isn't going to go away soon.

~~~
joebadmo
I'm an admitted Google fanboy, but I think Gruber (along with the other two,
generally) is an excellent writer and analyst when he's writing about Apple
unrelated to any other company. And since it's pretty undisputable that Apple
is one of the most important companies in the world and such an _anamoly_ in
so many ways, I find it pretty important to read Gruber on the subject.

In fact, I often wish there was a writer with as aserbic a wit and as
insightful an analytical mind on the subject of Google (Dan Lyons doesn't
qualify, though fake Steve Jobs was pretty funny). Not for the apologia like
this piece, but for when writers like Gruber, Marco, and especially John
Siracusa are critical of their subject of obsession. The thing I love about
Siracusa's podcast (Hypercritical) in particular is that you can really feel
true, unadulterated, and unself-conscious devotion to the subject in the
unchecked criticism he gives. And I wish that culture existed around Google.

There are plenty blogs that follow Google news in a sort of flat way
(9to5google, GoogleOperatingSystem), and Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand
provides analysis, but it's all on sort of a surface level. (And, Sullivan is
great, but I wouldn't call him a great writer so much as a comprehensively
knowledgeable one.)

Maybe what I really want is Steven Levy to write a blog for real.

(Note: I try to be the change I want to see in the world, but I don't have the
talent, sources, or time to write as well as I'd like. But I do my best.
<http://blog.byjoemoon.com/> )

------
socratic
Does Gruber ever add any real information in an information theoretic sense?
He seems to be on Apple's side 100% of the time. (I guess he suggested that
the App Store approval process was broken at some point...)

He mostly just appears to be a pro-Apple pundit who has a popular blog that
gets a lot of revenue in advertising. But I never see Cringely or Dvorak posts
upvoted. What gives?

This does not seem to be very reasoned analysis. He calls the CEO childish and
Android (the largest smartphone OS in the US?) desperate. This feels like a
hyperbolic opinion piece. What should I be getting out of this article?

~~~
orangecat
_Does Gruber ever add any real information in an information theoretic sense?_

I'd say the main information content is in who he attacks in the process of
boosting Apple. Microsoft and Windows barely get mentioned these days; it's
all Google and Android all the time.

~~~
recoiledsnake
I think Gruber, Asymco, et al. have been taken aback by Android's year over
year ascendancy. They were certainly predicting gloom and doom of Android, so
patents are their last resort to reign in Android now.

See units and marketshare of Android for 2nd quarter 2010 vs. 2011.

[http://wmpoweruser.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/08/image66.pn...](http://wmpoweruser.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/08/image66.png)

Asymco failing at analysis and predictions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2887430>

~~~
guywithabike
Units and market share don't mean much if your margins are razor thin (or,
worse, nonexistent).

~~~
ZeroGravitas
People only believe that to be true because Asymco keeps repeating it and
getting quoted widely by people like Gruber in the Apple echo-chamber (and
because they desperately want it to be true).

A key diversionary tactic Asymco uses is to combine dumbphone and smartphone
sales, so companies like Samsung that are transitioning customers from
genuinely low-margin, low-cost, end-of-lifecycle products onto relatively much
higher margin Android phones are presented as if they are not doing very well,
when in fact they have two seperate business: a rapidly growing and profitable
Android business, and a break-even or loss-making dumbphone business that
they're winding down.

Notice how much "better" HTC is doing in his stats (despite regular
doom'n'gloom predictions from him about them in the last year) because they
don't have a dumbphone business.

------
collint
I see this: Google was a happy accident because of the web.

Given the trajectory of Apple, where would the web be in 10 years if Google
wasn't throwing everything, and clearly they are doing so, at keeping their
platform alive.

Android is about keeping the web a dominant platform as we shift to the next
generation of computing.

Google is right to bet the farm on keeping that endeavor alive.

It appears as though they got backed into the corner, but we've never seen
Google make a purchase like this.

It's more expensive than usual. And it's not an obvious up-and-comer.

I imagine the #1 thing they could do would be to start picking off staff from
both companies to form a super-group to push the hardware into yet unknown
territory.

(As a person whose career interests align with Google's I hope the knock it
out of the fucking park.)

------
aaronbrethorst
_Motorola held out for a full acquisition at a premium far above the company’s
actual value, and threatened to go after its sibling Android partners if
Google didn’t acquiesce._

Say what you will about Gruber and his Apple fanboyism, this rings true to me.
By and large, the article seems very astute.

~~~
asknemo
Threatening to go after other Android partners makes little sense for
Motorola. It's not something Motorola would do to get most profit from it. If
Motorola has threatened Google something, it would be to sell to Microsoft.
That will make much more sense.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
_I would bring up IP as a very important for differentiation (among Android
vendors). We have a very large IP portfolio, and I think in the long term, as
things settle down, you will see a meaningful difference in positions of many
different Android players. Both, in terms of avoidance of royalties, as well
as potentially being able to collect royalties. And that will make a big
difference to people who have very strong IP positions._

[http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/11/motorolas-sanjay-
jha-o...](http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/11/motorolas-sanjay-jha-openly-
admits-they-plan-to-collect-ip-royalties-from-other-android-makers/)

~~~
asknemo
That doesn't mean the action make sense. My point is that it won't make sense
for Motorola to do that, not whether they did or did not do it. Google can
easily tell them that if they do that prematurely, Android ecosystem will
fail, rocking the same boat they are in. Sensibly, you can't get much
royalties from a failed platform, and Apple/Microsoft won't give Motorola any
medals for going that path.

------
blinkingled
Gruber claims that Apple and Microsoft probably are feeling great that Google
had to shell out $12.5B to acquire a failing company like Motorola along with
its 'misguided' management and rapidly declining sales.

So what is wrong with that loaded closing statement? Well lots. Firstly he
admits the patents part was a good move for Google and the Android platform.
He also does math and says they bought 3x Nortel patents for 3x the price. So
essentially Google got ton of other Motorola stuff (hardware division, cable
modem, set top boxes, Android handset software team et.al) for free. Plus so
far as I can tell Droid is a pretty well known and fairly successful brand and
Motorola's management did the right thing in saving the company from going
down under - not exactly misguided. Gruber would perhaps only call them guided
if they did not compete with Apple in any way shape or form!

And what did Gruber had to say when Apple spent billions on Nortel patents?
Nope not desperation or anything. Just the fact that Google lost was super
important and Android was going to be in trouble.

Gruber also leaves us with no insight on what Google could have done better.
He also doesn't feel nearly as bad about Google having Apple by the balls on
Nortel patents and making them pay good for Nortel patents, as much as he does
about Motorola having Google by the balls by just doing what any sane business
will do to maximize its valuation. In comparison actually Google got an
arguably better deal - 12.5B for 25000 patents, and a whole functional,
moderately successful hardware company with diverse business.

P.S. Motorola has done phones long before Apple thought about it. As such they
know a whole lot more about the hardware part as I can tell by the signal and
voice quality of my Moto phone. Google and you will find many that can make
reliable phone calls with Motorola phones when iPhone could never. So dissing
Motorola may be fashionable but I think they know better.

~~~
bgentry
just FYI, the "Droid" brand is licensed by Verizon, not Motorola. There have
been many "Droid" phones, all of them on Verizon and from several different
manufacturers.

~~~
blinkingled
You're right of course. But even so, Motorola had lot more to do with Droid
brand's popularity than any other Android OEM.

------
ZeroGravitas
_"Motorola — a handset maker with rapidly declining sales"_ \-- Gruber (with a
link to an Asymco post, which doesn't actually mention sales figures, only
market share)

Last quarter they sold 4.4 million smartphones, up from 2.7 million the same
quarter last year. (If you're more interested in market share as depicted by
Asymco's graph then they're growing slightly at around 5% of the smartphone
market, compared with say Apple which is growing slightly at around 15%, or
Samsung which has _gained_ 15% in the last year to just under 20%.)

Even if you like to play the Asymco game of including dumbphones that don't
run Android to make Android look bad, they still increased total phone sales
year-on-year, to 11 million, meaning their increased Android sales replaced a
smaller number of lost dumbphone sales.

------
discodave
Ok, so the math for everybody.

Google spent 12.5B. Motorola has 3B in cash. The stock market thought motorola
was worth around 6-7B incl cash (assuming they weren't just factoring in a
takeover already).

So google really paid around 6B for the patents, they don't have to do
anything to motorola. They can sell all or parts of it, maybe muck around with
some of the parts of Motorola _other_ than cell phones. But either way the
Nortel auction was 4.5B for JUST patents while google gets a mobile
electronics company + patents for its 12B.

------
chanux
Google picks up nearly three times as many patents as AppleSoft got from
Novell and Nortel...

And they paid… nearly three times as much...

and a phone company came free?

~~~
pooriaazimi
Patents are not measured by quantity, but by their quality. A ton of patents
doesn't mean anything if you can't use them in court to hold AppleSoft back.

I don't have the faintest idea whether these patents are of good quality or
not, I just wanted to point it out. It's beyond me why so many bright people
here on HN think these 25,000 patents might worth the same as (or three times
more of) Nortel's patents. They 'might', but we don't know that as a fact. I'd
always heard Nortel was strong on patents, but prior to this day I didn't know
that Motorola had any patents at all.

------
Tichy
It's true that Motorola is not the most exciting handset maker. However, if
Google could just get rid of the nonsense and get Motorola to create "pure"
devices, some very good things could come out of it. They are certainly
capable of it.

Personally I am hoping to hear an announcement of the Xoom 2 as soon as
possible.

------
palebluedot
The price of $12.5B is prior to discounting the $3B+ in cash the MMI is
holding. A lot of emphasis is placed on the '$12.5B' value in this article,
without taking into consideration that this is really 25% higher than the
effective price of $9.5B, once you back out the cash.

------
Padraig
The article makes a great case that Motorola is the real winner.

The buyout can't have been solely for the patents, because Motorola are losing
patent battles. It's unlikely that it was just to own a phone manufacturer,
because why buy a 3rd rate one at a 60% premium? So why? Because Motorola had
Google by the balls and could have further fucked Android up for everyone
else.

It's a shame how every discussion of a Daring Fireball article here collapses
into 'Gruber is a fanboy', but it's particularly frustrating when it's an
insightful article like this one. If he's half as bad as some of you make out,
it should be easy to argue the points without resorting to attacking the man.

------
gc_val
Is it an analysis or rant? Looks like JG is more annoyed with the fact that
GOOG got patent portfolio than credible threat to iPhone with possible all
integrated Moto based Android devices.

He is absolutely wrong on whole "patent wars" issue. Of course GOOG is showing
its "big brother" attitude time to time but his beloved AAPL is not clean
either. This holier than thou attitude sucks!

Moto may be "second-rate" mobile maker. They may be in loss. GOOG is not
stupid to shell out 12B "just" for patent portfolio. Always remember GOOG
thinks ahead of everyone. People were criticizing GOOG when they made Android
open and free. They were criticizing about paying too much money to YouTube
(which is on fire now). GOOG is definitely smarter than Gruber.

