

Motorola had another suitor: Microsoft - fpgeek
http://gigaom.com/2011/08/15/guess-who-else-wanted-to-buy-motorola/

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Athtar
According to this report: [http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-was-
interested-in-m...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-was-interested-
in-motorola-too-2011-8), Microsoft was not interested in buying Motorola.
Instead, they were (supposedly) close to settling their patent dispute with
Motorola, and signing a cross-licensing deal giving them access to Motorola's
patents.

~~~
fpgeek
If Microsoft was settling their patent dispute with Motorola and looking at a
cross-licensing agreement, that is all the more reason for Google to buy them.
Either Google gets a cross-licensing deal and gets the protection they want
for the Android ecosystem (at least from Microsoft) or Google winds up with a
patent portfolio that Microsoft has already decided is dangerous.

------
bergie
Had Microsoft bought Motorola, Nokia would've been in some interesting
times...

------
lucasjake
It is interesting the level of poker these tech firms are starting to play
with each other.

We don't see these announcements playing out the way they would have in the
gogo 90's, but the magnitude of these deals are equal or bigger, and have more
meaning in the long term than what we saw in the last tech boom.

------
VladRussian
so Motorola bluffed young Google CEO into the deal by threatening to sell to
MSFT? Looks like there was some value in having Schmidt as the CEO.

~~~
orangecat
Not a bluff. Microsoft would gladly have paid billions to increase their
ability to extort fees from Android manufacturers, or shut them down
altogether like Apple is trying to do.

~~~
VladRussian
>Microsoft would gladly have paid billions

even following your logic and supposing that buying MOTO would have helped
MSFT achieve these goals - they still haven't paid the billions, or do you
suggest that there was a bidding war (and a young cool player just overbid
them ? :)

~~~
nkassis
Haven't seen numbers for what Microsoft was willing to pay. How do you know
they overbid?

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recoiledsnake
I don't think Microsoft is or ever was seriously interested in buying a
hardware OEM. After all, they stayed away from PC OEMS even when their market
capitalization was north of $500 billion.

When asked why don't they make their own Windows Phone(with WP7) instead of
relying on OEMs for it, their reply was 'Microsoft likes to create platforms'.

This is the reason that they will probably stay away from Nokia.

I think their one exception is consoles, where they went with the industry
standard of vertically integrated hardware.

~~~
potatolicious
I do think MS would benefit from vertical integration in the mobile space
though.

If there's one consistent pattern to OS platforms (MSFT or otherwise) is that
you can expect your OEMs to completely manhandle and abuse it.

It happened to Windows, it's happening now to Android, and without Nokia
around to whip the other OEMs into line, it will happen with WP7 also.

Is it any surprise that the most sought after phones have all been vertically
integrated? There's a level of hardware-software integration and polish
possible there that OEM-based platforms have yet to be able to approach.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>If there's one consistent pattern to OS platforms (MSFT or otherwise) is that
you can expect your OEMs to completely manhandle and abuse it.

It's not easy to manhandle and abuse WP7. No one can preinstall running
services and non-uninstallable(!) apps like on Android. All OEMS/carriers get
is a longer tile on the homescreen that can be removed/uninstalled with a long
press. There are strict minimum hardware requirements. I think MS learnt the
lesson from the PCs.

>Is it any surprise that the most sought after phones have all been vertically
integrated?

Care to back that up? The only recent example is iPhone. RIM and WebOS are
either slow or going down. The counter examples are Android which seem to be
doing VERY well and displacing iPhone/Symbian/RIM as the top dog.

~~~
tzs
What Android phone has been among the "most sought after phones"? From all the
reports I've seen, no particular Android phone is sought after they way iPhone
is currently sought after, or the way Blackberry was once sought after.

~~~
CrazedGeek
The Droid (aka Milestone) and Evo 4G were both pretty sought-after.

~~~
potatolicious
I disagree - we're talking about at least an order of magnitude difference in
"sought after". The Droid, Evo 4G, and now the Galaxy 2 are all highly sought
after phones... in the smartphone enthusiast community.

Which at the end of the day is just a _subset_ of the "gadget/tech enthusiast"
community, which is a tiny subset even then of the greater population.

The cachet and demand of the Evo 4G to, say, the iPhone, or BlackBerry during
its heyday, are _completely_ different.

~~~
recoiledsnake
From where are you getting your numbers?
[http://blog.flurry.com/bid/31410/Day-74-Sales-Apple-
iPhone-v...](http://blog.flurry.com/bid/31410/Day-74-Sales-Apple-iPhone-vs-
Google-Nexus-One-vs-Motorola-Droid)

The phones you listed have HUGE worldwide demand. While it may not eclipse
iPhone because it's one device, they're nothing to sneeze at, and the demand
goes way beyond geeks.

Is there some place where you're getting your hard data?

[http://gadgetizor.com/samsung-galaxy-s-2010-sales-
figures-10...](http://gadgetizor.com/samsung-galaxy-s-2010-sales-
figures-10-million/6400/)

[http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-
passes-5m-sales...](http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-
passes-5m-sales-worldwide-27167632/)

