Google-Motorola

Google agreed to pay Motorola Mobility $2.5 billion if the proposed purchase does not happen.

William R. Hambrecht, who was put on Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s board by activist investor Carl Icahn, has resigned his seat, leaving the mobile-device company with nine directors.

Verizon Communications Inc. said Google Inc.'s $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. was a welcome development because it may bring "stability" to a recent slate of smartphone patent disputes, though it stopped short of totally endorsing the proposed acquisition.

Phone makers depending on Google Inc's Android software should worry about the Web search leader's deal to buy Motorola Mobility, the head of rival Nokia said.

Among Motorola Mobility Holdings’s more than 17,000 patents, a group of 18 may prove most useful in Google’s effort to fend off litigation targeting the Android mobile platform.

Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility means the people who decide what happens when you push a button on your smartphone will now also decide where that button goes. The same way Apple does. And RIM. And HP with WebOS.

During a week that featured volatility in the stock market, chaos in the Middle East, and an increase in attention paid to the presidential campaign, Google's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola drew excitement in social media. For the week of August 15-19, the sale was the most discussed subject on Twitter and the No. 3 story on blogs.

While an earthquake and a hurricane slammed the East Coast in August, the West Coast endured a different kind of turmoil. Within a 10-day span this past month, Google reinvented itself as a hardware company, Hewlett-Packard moved to ditch PCs and become a software company, and Apple lost its iconic CEO.

On the surface, one might think Google/Motorola wants to emulate Apple's success in the SmartPhone area. Not only do you create the great software, but you design the product too, like the iPhone.

Google was willing to pay $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in no small part because of its stockpile of 17,000 patents. The patent portfolio, some analysts estimate, could represent more than half of the value of the deal, or more than $400,000 a patent. If so, it was a relative bargain.