It has been more than two years since Google announced they were going to acquire Motorola Mobility. More than a year since the deal closed.
Yet it appears that Samsung is the top Android device vendor, by an enormous margin.
Did Google really pay $12.5B just to have Motorola Mobility fail as an Android device manufacturer?
2 replies on “Google and Motorola”
Maybe the aquisition was purely defensive? Google just has a leverage they can play at any point whenever negotiating with Samsung is painful, they can always say “well, we’ll do that with Motorola”.
Another explaination is that they do not target the same customers for Motorola and Samsung. They know that Moto will *never* be able to compete on price & features with Samsung so they may be targetting a higher end market, with a “made in USA” tag, slower cycles and and overall more “solid” experience (I heard the Moto X feels ‘stronger’ than any Samsung).
The defensive patent idea is one I’ve seen mentioned, though why then ignore everything else that came along with the deal (hardware)?
In terms of making phones, should Motorola at least be making the Nexus phones instead of Samsung and LG? The whole situation seems very strange.