Google's Eric Schmidt claims again they won't love Motorola more than the other Android kids
Google's Eric Schmidt shed some more light in a Bloomberg interview on the purposes behind its $12.5 billion Motorola acquisition. The other Android kids are rightfully worried that Google might play favorites with its new baby, and save a little something something just for Motorola's future handsets and tablets that will set them apart.
It's hard to believe it won't be so to an extent, but Eric Schmidt reiterated it's in Google's best interest to keep the competition among Android manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony Ericsson as strong as possible:
The Android ecosystem is the No. 1 priority, and that we won’t do anything with Motorola, or anybody else by the way, that would screw up the dynamics of that industry... We need strong, hard competition among all the Android players. We won’t play favorites in the way people are concerned about.
On the other hand, Google's ex-CEO said that the 17 000-strong patent portfolio of Moto has been just one reason to acquire it, and not the main one, in order to bulk up on patents. The company aims to get just enough to achieve a shaky truce in the intellectual property war against Apple and Microsoft, which he said is the way these IP fights have developed in other industries.
What would the other main reasons for the Google-Motorola deal be then, if not solely for patent protection? We are arriving again at Google getting up close and personal with Motorola as a hardware maker, and Eric Schmidt didn't even try to hide it. He said that Motorola for the search giant is a way to better understand how to integrate its software with hardware: “The majority of the reasoning had to do with the fact that we benefit by having a hardware partner at Google who knows how to build the next generation of tablets and phones.”
Despite the spin doctoring, it's somehow hard to imagine Andy Rubin only peeping over Motorola engineers' shoulder and taking notes, rather than the process working two-way, and Motorola getting some of the inside info it needs to make its Android products stand out in certain target markets.
via Bloomberg
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