Comment by cube13 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cube13 | Hacker News Reader

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>I don't see where you're coming from on b/c. Motorola makes great hardware - it would be hard to improve that.

That's exactly the problem. Google, as a software company, doesn't currently have to worry about a lot of the issues that the hardware side of Motorola does, like supply chain management(both on the production and disposal side), dealing with retail outlets, directly dealing with cellular service providers as a device manufacturer, governmental agency compliance for hardware, etc. Google doesn't have really any experience with this, which means they absolutely need to keep the people that are currently doing those jobs.

Also, from what I've heard from people that used to work there, Motorola's engineering culture is on the "very corporate" side of things. Integrating that into Google's rather loose culture will be difficult, I think. This is especially important because both sides will need to be working with each other very closely.

Best case, Google doesn't change much, and integrates Motorola's hardware chain well. However, if they do exert a lot of control over the hardware side, quality could decline in the short term as the issues I mentioned above get worked out.

Overall, I think it's a much stronger position for both companies. Motorola gets Google's software expertise, and Google gets Motorola's hardware engineering and supply chain.

  > Google, as a software company, doesn't currently have
  > to worry about a lot of the issues that the hardware
  > side of Motorola does, like supply chain management

The purchase comes with the employees that are currently running these things. It's not like Google bought the operation sans the talent, and now has to use current Google employees (with no experience in this field) to run Motorola Mobility.

All they have to do is operate it as a separate business that has to follow certain 'edicts' from on high. If they want to further integrate it into the Google fold they can do it gradually over time.

That's exactly why I said Google's priority needs to be keeping those employees with those skills and talents. As with any acquisition of this nature, people are going to leave Motorola because of this. Google needs to make a lot of effort to identify and keep the key people.

It's important to note that this isn't anything like any of Google's previous acquisitions, both in scale and the nature of the company being acquired. Google usually has absorbed the entire startup that they bought, and ran it as just a new team. They can't do that here. It's too big, and too complex to just do that.

EDIT: I think I'm giving off too negative a vibe here. I do think that this is a very good merger for Google and Motorola, and I think that Google will handle this merger in the best way they can.

I just believe that there are a lot of potential "gotchas" that can(and probably will) snag the companies in the short term.

Remember the 280 North[1] acquisition by Motorola (they were a YC company)?

I don't know what will happen, but I'm optimistic as a complete outside observer. This acquisition was completely unexpected from any conventional/ conservative perspective.

Edit: I forgot to link: [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/280_North

you bring up some great points, cube13.

personally, i'm looking forward to the acquisition so we can have Android devices that match up to the iPhone on a hardware level (emphasis on battery life). but the biggest concern i have is how Google is going to deal with the bureaucratic system that they will inherit from Motorola.

i'm currently working in the mobile industry, and a lot of manufacturing companies (Motorola included) indeed have a "very corporate" engineering culture. there are many levels between the devs/test engineers and the customer (whether it be the chip providers, service providers, other manufacturers) and the higher ups within the company. although Google is already a large company, i feel that they make an effort on minimizing the "corporate feel" and that a lot of engineers are attracted to that effort. but with this acquisition, will top-talent engineers get turned off? or will Google be able to minimize/eliminate the inefficiencies between the Google devs and Motorola engineers?

ps: i'm happy to finally be a part of the HN community :)

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