Defending Android
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
To get at the likelihood of best case and worst case you can't put out the unknowns and assume each unknown is likely to have a bad outcome and then conclude with fear uncertainty and doubt.
One such unknown is credibility of Motorola's patents. Scratch Florian Mueller and MG doesn't know squat about this. No one but Google's lawyers do. In so far as Google's lawyers are not idiots in spending $12.5B on the patents without having some plan on utilizing/monetizing them AND Motorola has actually not lost a patent lawsuit against Microsoft or Apple _yet_ and/or they aren't paying royalties to them yet, it is premature to conclude that Motorola's patents won't go far enough. That's exactly what MG says is likely to be the case.
Then there is the bias, that makes MG again rely on something insubstantial and unverifiable - How the PR notes of various Android OEMs were worded. MG claims that makes the Android OEMs look disingenuous. Less professional, may be - but disingenuous? I don't think so. Patent royalties are a threat to the OEMs and they know it well. If Google could put a patent pool up that they start with 25000 patents and growing and it convinces other manufacturers to contribute to it under the OHA - it benefits the OEM immensely and they know it. What is the other alternative for the OEMs? Go Windows Phone 7? Nice idea but it hasn't made a dent yet and if it does they can be sure to pay what Microsoft damn well demands - including choking their own throats with exclusive licensing agreements. For the OEMs it is clearly in their best interest to go where Google wants them to go. And Motorola for them was always a competitor - that hasn't changed with the acquisition.
Here is another nonsensical thing - MG says Google will be forced to make Motorola design better phones/tablets and that will mean they play partial to Motorola. He ignores the fact that Google is all about more handsets running Android. And Motorola isn't even remotely capable of addressing even 1/3rd of the potential smartphone market worldwide - Google needs HTC/ZTE/Samsung to fill in. Badly. There is just no way Google will want to even try to screw over them. And the OEMs can always up their game and compete well with Motorola on hardware, software update frequency, price and features. That doesn't change. Bottom line? Little incentive for Google to screw over the OEMs and little to no new adverse impact of Motorola to the OEMs.
I wasn't expecting MG to write anything insightful but he asserted at the start of the article that he wasn't going to go all Dan Lyons and start opening his mouth to talk without understanding - so here.
Google can use Motorola to force the issues that have plagued Android for a while. Motorola devices will probably become "pure Android" devices like the Nexus series, pushing carriers to abandon the crapware and carrier-specific UIs they're infatuated with.
Most people I know with Motorola Android devices say the build quality is for crap. I hope Google can improve this, but if not, I hope they can at least get the carriers to quit layering garbage on HTC's nice hardware.
I find it sad to watch. Any hope of patent reform in the US got a lot bleaker in 2011 due to the billions being spent on defensive portfolios, especially in the mobile space. There's no way these companies are going to let any legislation pass that invalidates their 'investments'. The best we seem to be able to hope for is that Google uses theirs defensively only, or adds them to copyleft-style patent pools like openinventionnetwork.com or openpatents.org. I harbor little hope that Apple or MS would do the same.
I do expect Google to use these patents more as a defensive neutralizer than as a means of attack - that's just consistent with their track record.
I hope (but doubt) that our Congress will see the amount of economic value being wasted on IP chess, and reform the system. All it takes is leadership and intelligence, both of which seem to be sorely lacking in government. Thankfully, these companies don't have formal veto power over legislation.
Personally, I've had the OG droid for a year and half now, and it is rock solid -- I've taken terrible care of it, drop it on concrete all the time, and yet it still works fine.
My only beef with it is that it's a pretty locked-down phone, which is why I went with Samsung instead.
I prefer the term 'patent-a-geddon' because it isn't at all like the cold war, no implied threat here, its all out mutually assured destruction. I think it can go either way, toward or away from saner patent law, it will certainly create giant nest eggs for law firms. If the '90s were the dot.com bubble this is perhaps the ip-law bubble.
Motorola Mobility or Motorola Solutions?
I've said that to myself many times. I've never had it (whatever "it" is) be the smartest thing I've ever done. To be fair, it is rarely the dumbest, either, though it tends to favor that.
If you find yourself thinking a choice will be this polar in outcome, you are probably making the wrong decision.
For the record, I don't think MG is right about this being the (binary) smartest or dumbest decision for Google.
That line about smartest or dumbest is silly, not the least b/c it could be both at different times (maybe a terrible idea now, but turns out to be a brilliant one five years from now, or vice versa).
How'd he get that job with Techcrunch again?