

Google's acquisition of Motorola approved by EU and U.S DoJ regulators - apetresc
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/european-commission-clears-motorola.html

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dsr_
The good: a flagship Android phone that doesn't have to have a manufacturer's
special sauce added to it.

The bad: in the US, they still have to dicker with the wireless carriers.

The ugly: every Android manufacturer will suspect they are being disfavored.

~~~
jrockway
_a flagship Android phone that doesn't have to have a manufacturer's special
sauce added to it_

Is the hardware between devices really all that different? Phones are
basically giant screens attached to giant batteries. Where do you go from
there? Put in CDMA and GSM radios that each do a bunch of frequencies, and
you're done developing phones forever.

(Even the iPhone 4 and iPhone 1 look approximately the same. Big screen. Home
button. Power button / volume buttons / vibrate switch. Android devices are
even simpler because they only need a power button.)

The problem with phones is that they are all the same in an abstract sense,
but all different with respect to drivers and hardware bugs. That means you
can never write phone OSes like you can write desktop OSes, which is a huge
drag on innovation. Imagine if you could choose between Ubuntu and Mint on
your phone. Instead, you're stuck with whatever you get from your carrier,
which is worse than nothing at all.

Phones are all software these days, and the hardware manufactures cannot code
their way out of a wet paper bag.

~~~
freehunter
> _you're done developing phones forever_

There are dozens of different form-factors. Take a look at the diversity of
the Android or even the WP7 market. Landscape sliders, portrait sliders, 4.3",
3.7", 5", 3", some with dual core, some with quad core, some with AMOLED
screens, some with SAMOLED screens, some LCD screens. Some with removable SD
cards, various amounts of storage, various price points of the market.

> _Even the iPhone 4 and iPhone 1 look approximately the same_

That's because Apple designed them all the same. The way Apple designs their
products does not have any relation to the amount of possible designs.

> _Android devices are even simpler because they only need a power button._

Android phones are supposed to have four face buttons. This is not strictly
required (allowing for variation), but the phones expect you to have four
buttons. Windows has three. Apple has one.

> _you're stuck with whatever you get from your carrier_

Except there _is_ a _huge_ amount of variation in the custom ROM world, which
many Android devices allow.

> _Phones are all software these days_

A common misconception that will at some point pave the way for true
innovation in hardware like we've seen in the past when the smartphone market
stagnated (then the iPhone was released and it was exciting again).

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melvinram
I really hope that Google will make a commitment to consistently and quickly
update all Motorola phones to the latest version of Android that the phone can
handle so that it becomes the standard expectation from all phone
manufacturers.

~~~
outside1234
ha - they don't even do that with their phones!

~~~
hack_edu
Actually they do.

And if you are talking about the Nexus One or G1 in particular, no provider
continues major-version support of 2+ year old phones.

~~~
e1ven
The iPhone 3GS was released on June 19, 2009, and runs the newest iOS releaes.
That was 2 years, 7 months ago.

~~~
hack_edu
And not very well IMHO, probably about as good as a Nexus One would ICS. There
is something to say for UX/UI standards.

~~~
chc
I would just like to emphasize that this is not a cop-out. Not only does my
top-of-the-line (when I bought it) iPhone 3GS with iOS 5 feel much more
sluggish than my girlfriend's very low-end Android phone, but apps — even
Apple apps — crash all the friggin' time due to memory exhaustion. Assuming
the experience upgrading an old Android to ICS would be similar, I'd say
Google is simply doing better QA than Apple.

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joebadmo
As a mildly disappointed Galaxy Nexus owner who significantly prefers Motorola
hardware to Samsung's, I really hope this means truly outstanding Nexus
devices in the near future.

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dminor
I'm hoping this leads to Android being developed completely in the open, with
open-source drivers as well.

~~~
rbarooah
How would this have that effect?

~~~
blario
As to drivers, what reason does Goggle have to not release the driver code?
This would be helpful to us that still want to use the latest Android more
than 2 years after we spend $800 on a nexus phone.

Sadly, the binary that is always locked down is the modem. That might not have
anything to do with the manufacture. Who knows what code carriers and
requiring manufacturers I hide in there.

~~~
fluidcruft
I wouldn't hold your breath--in his recent State of AOSP post, about getting
companies to support AOSP, JBQ wrote: "I've given up on HTC, Motorola and
Qualcomm, as it's clear at this point that they're not going to help in that
area"

This was just before the CDMA/LTE (Qualcomm) devices were eradicated from
AOSP.

[https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/75aLL1dW...](https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/75aLL1dWY2u)

~~~
blario
Now that Motorola IS Google, it'd be safe to say google is interested in
helping google?

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corin_
Can anyone explain why the US DoJ announced that they were OK with it less
than four hours after the European Commission?

They haven't come out and given it as a joint decision, but it seems too close
to be a coincidence - had they just co-ordinated PR releases, or was one of
them pushed into a decision by the other, or...?

~~~
lambda
The DoJ announcement does say "During the course of its investigation of the
Google/Motorola Mobility transaction, the Department of Justice cooperated
closely with the European Commission."

So yes, it does sound like the Google/Motorola portion of the decision was
coordinated. The DoJ was probably waiting for the EC announcement before
releasing theirs, or maybe they just agreed to release them the same day and
the DoJ one was released a few hours later due to the timezone difference.

~~~
cube13
It's time zone differences. The 4 hour lag is the difference between Eastern
US time during Daylight Saving Time and GMT.

The EC announcement, assuming that the Google blog is on Pacific time, would
be around 5-6 PM GMT. That's after normal trading hours ends, which makes
sense for announcements like this.

The DoJ announcement was at 5PM ET as well.

~~~
megablast
I think he was suggesting the coincidence of two independent investigations
finishing at almost exactly the same time.

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joeybaker
Anybody know a good place to see how much google had to spend on lobbies to
get this through? It'll be interesting if it's high or low.

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samstave
Motorola made a lot more than just phones. Did Google buy all their radio
business as well.

Think about every Law Enforcement vehicle in the US; every single one of them
has a motorola comm system in them. Will Google be making these?

~~~
fluidcruft
Motorola split into Motorola Solutions (the robust, profitable part you're
thinking about) and Motorola Mobility (the volatile, floundering part that was
weighing Motorola down) early last year. Motorola Mobility are mobile phones
and cable top boxes, that's the part Google bought. That other stuff is
Motorola Solutions.

After the split Motorola Mobility went into "ah oh, somebody better buy me or
I might do something stupid" mode playing Microsoft and Google against each
other. This is also when Motorola was leaking the rumors of a full private
Android fork that cuts Google out (replacing the market, gps/navigation
libraries, etc), threatening to sue other Android manufacturers, etc. After
Microsoft/Apple et al got the Nortel patents, Google couldn't afford for
Microsoft to also get Motorola's.

~~~
Zancarius
Thanks for the comment. I seemed to remember that Google was acquiring a
_division_ of Motorola (Mobility, specifically), but I couldn't decide if the
headline was either sensationalized or I completely missed out on something.
You've quelled my surprise!

