Motorola Mobility

Google’s CEO Larry Page made headlines again this morning: He just officially announced Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, while confirming the joined companies will soon create the next generation of mobile devices.

The chief executive took to the official Google Blog to reveal the news:

It’s why I’m excited to announce today that our Motorola Mobility deal has closed. Motorola is a great American tech company that has driven the mobile revolution, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation, including the creation of the first cell phone. We all remember Motorola’s StarTAC, which at the time seemed tiny and showed the real potential of these devices. And as a company who made a big, early bet on Android, Motorola has become an incredibly valuable partner to Google.

Page appointed Googler Dennis Woodside as CEO of the newly acquired business, and claimed he has known the exec for over a decade, while adding, “He’s been phenomenal at building teams and delivering on some of Google’s biggest bets.”

The post is quick and to-the-point. The most important aspect to it, however, is the last line: “[…] I’m confident Dennis and the team at Motorola will be creating the next generation of mobile devices that will improve lives for years to come.”

That’s right. Google is now a hardware company.

Google made headway on the $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition late last week when China finally gave the merger a go-ahead. Motorola promptly filed an 8-K form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday that specified the deal’s transaction would likely close today.

Check out the full announcement below—or jump over to Google’s blog. 

Expand
Expanding
Close

According to a report from Chicago Business (via The Verge), Google is considering moving Motorola Mobility’s main offices to Chicago. The report claims sources have confirmed the company is looking for 500,000 square feet of office space in downtown Chicago that could house up to 3000 employees, more than enough room for Motorola’s new headquarters. The report said those 3,000 employees would likely be relocated from Motorola’s current Libertyville HQ, but not involve those from its River North location:

Among the handful of sites under consideration are upper floors of the landmark Merchandise Mart in River North and Fulton Market Cold Storage, a large warehouse that’s slated for redevelopment in the West Loop, according to a source familiar with the matter… Top real estate executives from Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters have toured several downtown sites over the past several month.

ChicagoBusiness said acquiring the property is still dependant on Google completely closing the acquisition with approvals from regulators in China. Apart from its main campus in Mountain View, Google is no stranger to downtown offices with about 3,000 employees currently calling downtown Manhattan home at the company’s second largest World offices.

Expand
Expanding
Close

According to a report from Bloomberg, U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Thomas Pender has ruled in favor (PDF) of Motorola and claimed Apple’s devices infringe on one Android-related patent owned by the company. The ruling is only a partial victory for Motorola’s attempt to receive an injunction on iPhones and iPads, because the judge’s decision will still have to be reviewed before import blocks can be achieved:

ITC Judge Thomas Pender said Apple violated one of four Motorola Mobility patent rights. The patent relates to Wi-Fi technology. The judge’s findings are subject to review by the six-member commission, which has the power to block imports that infringe U.S. patents.

As for the Wi-Fi patent in question (# 6,246,697), Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD that Motorola refused to license its industry-standard technology on “reasonable terms”:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google must be napping to reenergize for its upcoming Motorola Mobility acquisition, because it has not completed a single buyout in 2012 despite purchasing 79 companies last year.

Google filed its 10-K with the SEC in January that revealed the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine spent $1.9 billion (including stock and cash) on 79 acquisitions in 2011. The more notable purchases were ITA Software for $676 million, and Apture, Katango, and Clever Sense. That means the Internet giant bought six to seven companies a month in 2011. In contrast, it obtained four companies a month in 2010 for a total 48 acquisitions worth $1 billion.

With that said, Google has not picked up a single company since Dec. 13, 2011—roughly four months since its last investment. If judging Google’s spending habits over the last two years, the firm should have already completed 16 to 28 buyouts in 2012 to bulk its portfolio of interests. The company still has time to flash its money, though, as it grabbed roughly 25 of those 2011 acquisitions after the year’s third quarter.

More information is available below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple’s latest cunning move in its Holy Crusade against Android involves getting a court order to force Google, the maker of Android software, to produce documents detailing the Android roadmap and its proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of handset maker Motorola Mobility. It was not immediately clear what data Apple was exactly seeking to uncover. This is notable, because Apple is actually going after Google with this request. It is the first direct in the ongoing legal war considering Apple fought Google by proxy in the past.

According to Bloomberg, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner ruled yesterday based on a patent lawsuit Apple filed in 2010 against Motorola that both Motorola and Google must spill relevant information to Apple, as “the Android/Motorola acquisition discovery is highly relevant to Apple’s claims and defenses.” Motorola, of course, opposed the request, offering the following argument.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Handset maker Motorola Mobility, about to be acquired by Google for $12.5 billion, published today a list of devices eligible for an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade (it previously explained why device updates are taking so long). The Xoom Family Edition tablet will get ICS in the second quarter. Unfortunately, owners of other devices will have to wait even longer, particularly the Photon 4G, Atrix 2, Atrix 4G and the non-Verizon Xyboard 8.2 and 10.1 that are slated to get ICS upgrades in the third quarter. Worse, many Verizon devices lack windows, including The Razr, Razr Maxx, Droid 4, Droid 3 and Droid Bionic.

This suggests Verizon certification is pushing back the planned ICS roll out for some of Motorola’s high-end phones sold in the United States. International version of the Razr is due for an ICS upgrade during the second quarter of this year. The company re-iterated that “Our engineers and designers are combing through the code and preparing it for you.”

Expand
Expanding
Close

As expected, the European Commission cleared Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of handset maker Motorola Mobility following a short period of back and forth between the Internet giant and European regulators. A statement issued by the European Commission said the transaction was approved “mainly because it would not significantly modify the market situation in respect of operating systems and patents for these devices.”

The Justice Department should approve the transaction this week, if the Wall Street Journal is to be trusted. When it finally goes through (and that’s a when at this stage, not an if), Google will gain control of Motorola’s extensive patent portfolio and use it to deflect Android patent attacks by Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft. The Commission noted it would continue to keep a close eye on “the increasingly strategic use of patents.” As you know, Apple is pressuring European Union regulators to establish consistent royalty fees for patents deemed essential to wireless standards.

Google’s Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Don Harrison wrote on the official company blog that Google is now “just waiting for decisions from a few other jurisdictions before we can close this transaction.” He maintained the company line that the deal will “enhance competition and offer consumers faster innovation, greater choice and wonderful user experiences.”

Motorola reported an $80 million loss in the holiday quarter and shed 800 jobs. It is also embroiled in a nasty patent fight with Apple that saw the latter sue the former in the United States over Qualcomm patent license after Motorola won a brief injunction of 3G iPhone and iPad sales in Germany.

Expand
Expanding
Close

While we already heard from the WSJ that United States regulators are going to approve Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Reuters is reporting today that European regulators are going to do the same. Getting an approval from both areas would be significant, and it would push the $12.5 billion buyout announced in August closer to sealing the deal.

After Europe and the U.S., Google will still have to get approval from China, Israel, and Taiwan. Chinese regulators have until March 20.

Google acquired Motorola Mobility for its large array of patents. There have also been reports that Google will use Motorola Mobility’s expertise in hardware to build its own Google hardware. WSJ reported yesterday that Google is developing a streaming home-entertainment system.

U.S. regulators will approve the acquisition next week. It is only a matter of time before the merger officially goes through.

Expand
Expanding
Close

In a new report from the Wall Street Journal this evening, the publication said the Justice Department is set to approve Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility as early as next week. This approval will give Google a good size push in to completing the acquisition.

The U.S. Justice Department is poised to clear Google Inc.’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, giving Google a powerful armory of technology patents to deploy in the smartphone wars.

However, antitrust enforcers in the U.S. and Europe remain concerned about Google’s commitment to license Motorola patents to competitors on fair terms, those people said, and will closely monitor Google’s use of the patents. The European Commission has set a Monday deadline to decide whether to approve the acquisition.

Google is set to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, and it is doing so to primarily add Motorola’s large array of patents to its arsenal. Google is currently working to get approvals in Europe, too. A new report surfaced yesterday claiming that Google was going to send letters to European groups in order to smooth over the approval process. We will keep you updated.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Hoping to continue gaining the necessary approvals it needs to acquire Motorola Mobility, Google is reportedly planning to assure wireless standards companies that it will license Motorola’s patents fairly. Bloomberg reported that Google will send the letters within the next day, and it will be signed by a Google lawyer to different groups.

The letter, to be signed by a senior Google lawyer, is likely to be sent within the next 24 hours, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. The move would come after a deadline passed for Google to submit remedies to the European Commission, which is evaluating the plan to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

Bloomberg said that one of the groups Google plans to send a letter to include the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Google will make such moves to help smooth over the acquisition.

One of the reasons Google is thought to buy Motorola Mobility is mainly for its large array of patents, which it will most likely license out if the deal goes through to gain more revenue. Google hopes that the acquisition continues for obvious reasons.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google reportedly poached an Apple employee to hire on its own staff. VentureBeat reported that Google hired Apple’s (now former) Senior Director of Product Integrity Simon Prakash for a secret project, where he would work perhaps alongside Google’s cofounder Sergey Brin. Prakash could even work under Motorola Mobility, whom Google is working to acquire, to head hardware projects.

Prakash worked at Apple for over eight years, and was responsible for the product quality across Apple’s products—from iPhones to Macs. To boost his reputation, you may recall that Apple was voted top among product quality in a recent JD Power and Associates Award for the sixth consecutive last year. It is obvious why Google would go after such an employee.

Prakash could be joining Google to work on Google X’s wearable heads up display glasses we showed you in December. Former Apple employee Richard DeVaul, a PhD. scientist from MIT with a focus on building wearable technologies, also left Apple to join Google X’s team. Is Google building up a huge and talented team for such a large product?

We have more iOS device executive departure news forthcoming, so stay tuned.

Expand
Expanding
Close

As 9to5Google reported last October, the search Goliath appears to be on a spending spree since 2011. Having reported holiday quarter earnings, the company filed its 10-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. The document, available online at the agency’s website, specifies that Google spent $1.9 billion dollars acquiring 79 companies throughout last year.

The sum includes cash and stock and is nearly double the $1 billion they spent on 48 acquisitions in the previous year. For the entire 2011, the number of full-time employees at the company ballooned 33 percent to 32,467 Googlers. Just do not count on the company satisfying its appetite for acquisitions anytime soon, as the filing reads:

Acquisitions will also remain an important component of our strategy and use of capital, and we expect our current pace of acquisitions to continue.

So, has Google put its acquisition money to good use?

Expand
Expanding
Close

Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. —while awaiting Google consumption— announced its Q4 2011 financial figures today, and the results are paltry.

The Illinois-headquartered communications corporation reported an $80 million loss on revenue of $3.4 billion. In Q4 2010, Motorola Mobility published a $100 million profit.

The red ink terrain expands to the company’s trend of dwindling phone shipments, as it sent out a mere 10.5 million devices in Q4 2011 versus 11.3 million from the same quarter a year earlier. The company shipped 42.4 million devices total in 2011 that includes 18.7 million smartphones and an additional million in tablets. However, Q4 2011 is only accountable for 200,000 units, despite the Xoom 2 launch and Xyboard series.

More information is available below.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The European Commission set a Feb. 13 deadline to restart its antitrust review and decide whether to approve Google Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc.

According to Reuters, the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company came forward with new documents to support its case, so the EU lifted the temporary suspension in order to make a decision next month.

The commission took a “routine” step and hit the pause button on its Jan. 10 deadline last month to gather more information and documents from Google, but the EU still anticipated the deal to close in 2012. It seems as though the commission’s forecast may be correct, as Motorola shareholders already announced their unanimous approval last November…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Motorola Mobility this morning scored a major win in Germany as the Mannheim Regional Court ruled against Apple in one of the patent infringement lawsuit that the maker of the Razr phone filed against the Cupertino firm in April of this year. Interestingly, Motorola’s counsel Quinn Emanuel also beat Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Samsung products in the United States and is representing Motorola in another Apple lawsuit involving iCloud.

As part of the ruling, first reported by the FOSS Patents blog, Motorola won an injunction against infringing Apple products, meaning the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the original iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. The court decision follows a default judgment against Apple last month, scheduled to be discussed again in early February.

The ruling involves the European Patent 1010336 (B1) – the European equivalent of the U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898 – which covers a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system” and was declared essential to the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) standard. This is the first “substantive ruling” as the injunction is “preliminarily enforceable” against Ireland-based Apple Sales International in exchange for a bond unless Apple wins a stay, FOSS Patents explains. How can Apple fight back?

Expand
Expanding
Close

Motorola Mobility has announced their Q3 earnings this afternoon, reporting $3.3 billion in revenue up 11% from Q3 of 2010 and a net loss of $32 million, which is better than Q3 of 2010’s $56 million net loss. Motorola Mobility also announced that they sold 100,000 Xoom tablets and shipped 4.8 million smartphones in Q3.

In the press release, seen after the break, Motorola Mobility shed some more light on their on-going acquisition by Google. November 17th the company will hold a meeting with shareholders to gain approval, and also has current pending approvals from the US Department of Justice, European agencies, and other governments around the world. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2012.

Expand
Expanding
Close

According to an SEC filing made by Motorola today (seen after the break), Motorola was able to get $3 billion more out of Google before they were acquired for $12 billion — even without any other bidders present.  But it isn’t that simple.

Today’s report contradicts August’s, saying Andy Rubin actually assisted in the acquisition when he reached out to Motorola first. It was previously stated that Rubin has no knowledge of the acquisition until the buyout was close to being announced. Rubin and company reached out to Motorola to buy patents, after losing the Nortel deal according to the filing.

The story continues as follows: Motorola’s Sanjay Jha told Google that Motorola wouldn’t only sell patents, rather the whole Motorola Mobility sector. Motorola than rejected two of Google’s offers which were $30 and $37 a share respectively, until both companies finally settled on a final price of $40 per share. Google, it appears, was in a hurry to get the deal done and bid pretty close to Motorola was after in order to avoid going to a long, drawn out auction process.

(via Business Insider)

SEC filing after the break:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Shoot, I’d take a 63% return on my investment, wouldn’t you? It seem’s like a lot to us, but a Motorola shareholder thinks Google underpaid in their acquisition of the company Monday. The shareholder believes Google solely paid for the patents, and not the rest of the mobile phone business. To back up the shareholder’s statement, analytical firm Frost & Sullivan came up with the same conclusion. (Phandroid via ZDNet)

Motorola has a portfolio of 24,500 patents and patent applications that instantly bolsters Google’s strength in the IP war. Looking at some recent patent auctions and using some simple math can show why these patents were indeed the target of Google’s acquisition.

Continue after the break..

Expand
Expanding
Close

According to the Wall Street Journal, Kodak has started the process of auctioning off some or all of its lucrative patents. Kodak’s demise is well documented as the once $30B company has seen its market cap slide to around $800m as the digital imaging company has continuously lost share to competitors. According to the WSJ one potential bidder is “a large, strategic buyer in the wireless industry looking to use the patents for defensive protection.”

This news comes on the tails of this past Monday’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google for a whopping $12.6B in cash. Google has long been rumored as potential suitors of multiple patent-holding companies such as InterDigital, Kodak and of course Motorola Mobility. If these Kodak patents do sell, they will not gather nearly as high of a price as the Motorola deal, but could likely see Kodak’s stock take a nice move up.  This morning’s news of one analyst saying Kodak’s patents could be worth 5x the company’s market cap sent shares up more than 25% and are currently up more than 5% in after hours trading on the latest Wall Street Journal news.  Meanwhile, InterDigital saw a pop in its shares today as another rumor was swirling that an auction will take place after Labor Day weekend and that there are multiple interested parties.
Expand
Expanding
Close

GigaOm is reporting that many companies were in the race to buy Motorola Mobility, including Microsoft. GigaOm contributes this as one of the reasons why Google made the purchase for such a high price, so other manufacturers couldn’t hurt their ecosystem even further with IP lawsuits.

The reason Motorola didn’t go with Microsoft was due to the fact Microsoft only wanted the company for its patents, rather than running a hardware business.

Talks between Google and Motorola began five weeks ago, reports GigaOm. Their sources say CEO Larry Page and Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha were talking directly and only a few other executives were brought in. Also, Android co-founder Andy Rubin wasn’t bought into the talks until recently. The deal Google has struck gives the company 17,000 current patents and 7,500 patent applications.