Google has announced that they are acquiring Motorola Mobility for US $12.5 billion. One of the largest reasons is to strengthen their patent portfolio – Motorola has over 17,000 patents in the mobile device field, and over 7,000 patents pending.
Larry Page, CEO of Google, said:
Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.
Also made clear is the fact that Android will remain open:
This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.
Check out the full announcement here.
