Guess who else wanted to buy Motorola?

Google may not have had much of a choice when it came to buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. If it didn't, someone else would have and that would have put the company in an even bigger patent hole. Sources say that Motorola was in acquisition talks with several parties, including Microsoft for quite some time. Microsoft was interested in acquiring Motorola’s patent portfolio that would have allowed it to torpedo Android even further. The possibility of that deal brought Google to the negotiation table, resulting in the blockbuster sale. Motorola found a Google deal more digestible because Microsoft had no interest in running a hardware business and was essentially interested in Motorola’s vast collection of patents.