The Many Wars of Google

[Commentary] The mobile market Metternichs are out in force, wargaming Google's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola's handset business.

The imponderables are many. Will partners like Samsung and HTC, which have been enriched by Google's Android phone software, abandon Google, or even look at Google cross-eyed, now that Google will own a competing phone maker? Don't bet on it. Android has been hugely advantageous for everyone who is a successful phone maker not named Apple. Remember, Apple's premium smartphone holds up the pricing structure for the whole industry. Samsung, HTC and the rest have been selling phones into this market and pocketing huge margins because they pay nothing for Android. Google wouldn't be human if it didn't want some of this loot, which buying Motorola would enable it to grab. But that doesn't mean, in the long term or the short term, that other hardware makers will walk away from a relationship that has lined their pockets and propelled them to the top of the rapidly growing and giant new business of making smartphones. Let's just say that while having Google as a competitor is not ideal, handset makers will learn to live with it