Balls
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
- Lyons has always been an ass, but when did he get so bitter?
- you just look childish when, only after losing the auction, you then claim you didn’t really want the thing anyway (google never cried sour grapes on nortel)
- Motorola knew they had Google by the balls. ... and they made Google pay and pay handsomely
The trick is not to get fooled by the reasonable-sounding phrases like: Another way to look at this story... and That’s not to say it wasn’t a bold, brash move, or even... the right move.
To those of you discussing Gruber's position on patents: it is the patents that change position relative to Gruber. :)
edit: typos, formatting
For example, note that Gruber does NOT point out how the acquisition will allow Google to do Apple-style seamless hardware/software design.
edit: Android -> Google as pointed out by m_eiman below
It will allow Google to do that, but I'm sure that's what you meant to say.
You got two big cultures coming from completely different parts of the tech world. There is no way that you will get seamless vertical integration that way.
This says that the deal was 100% about patents and nothing else, which in turn says it wasn't that great of a deal in the first place (considering as they paid a big premium for the patent portfolio).
But assuming that they break their promise to partners and do what apple does too by designing both hardware and software together: it would be a good thing for Google as a phone maker, but a nail on the "Android as open" coffin. I don't think they'll be able to risk a move like this - angering their partners and probably breaking Android up -, which just means that the actual impact this will have on the quality of phones coming from Google and Android as a mobile OS is slim to none.
But I hope they use the opportunity to make great Android handsets. (a role HTC seemed to take on and then drift away from).
They don't have to worry about their partners. It's not like any of them have much choice - only Android & WP7.
The argument for this is pretty simple: They bid up several billion dollars. They lost. Suddenly, they decry the bidding as anti-competitive. Sour grapes.
"The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop." -- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-a...
What you're describing is closer to "they ganged up against us".
Also no-one wrote a article about the patents beside Google itself. The ones who didn't get shit.
Sorry but if this aren't sour grapes I don't know what is.
Edit: I forgot to mention that Microsoft wanted to gang with Google in the first place but after Google lost they said "they ganged against us". It's just ridiculous.
1. I think you are mixing deals
2. GOOG accepting MS offer would have been dumb. Google wanted the patents to avoid lawsuits from MS-Apple. Teaming up with them would have meant that these patents are useless against them (I assume that Apple/MS would not have said - okay we team up for now, but you can sue us using these patents later).
3. I am not sure, but a lot of people have quoted that Google has been vocal about the stupidity of patent system even before these deals. Also if I am involved in a deal, I will never speak of it (or the stupidity of it) in public. That again, would be a dumb move. So yes, Google's statement should have arrived after they lost the deal. Also, AFAIK they said that the patents might be useless to them technically, but they needed them for litigation wars.
4. Using Pi*1bil as a bid, is no different than 4bil (Other than the magnitude of course). Not to logical people at least. Yes, lawyers who are not aware of the digits of Pi or shareholders who bought shares of the company X because the saw it climbing a month ago, would feel that, but that's dumb stereotyping of numbers - I would say. In fact, 3.14Bil sounds a lot more cultural and sophisticated to me than 3.1 or 4. But that's probably the geek in me.
5. Yes they paid 3 times more. But they also got 3 times the patents (and these are not licensed to MS!) + 1x times patents in review. In addition they got a manufacturing line they can innovate on and a lot of talent.
Also, MM has 3.5Bil in cash reserves. That means that it's actually 12.5 - 3.5. So, still a better deal, I would say. Then again, that's just a CS student talking - I have no idea what these patents are worth.
Edit: Formatting.
I'm not sure if Google is really the hero at this point like other commenters are stating here. Maybe they bought 3 times more patents than MS/Apple but it's not clear to me if all of those are really interesting in this fight.
I have to admit that I just don't like the Google way here. Saying that patent system sucks and and patents are bad but buying more and more patents is just silly don't you think? Plus they said that Nortels weren't worth 4 billion but they bought 3x patents for 12,5 billion. It's just the same ratio isn't it?.
Let's just see how this will end.
As said previously, this acquisition hits a trifecta of benefits, not just a large and Android-relevant patent portfolio. Google can now directly create Android pure phones to their intended specifications, and they have tremendous talent and resources at their disposal.
Patents were huge, but to look at this issue and only see the patents is a logical foible.
In other words, the only reason some people are well known is that they're well known. That kind of fame burns out quickly once people stop paying attention.
don't feed the troll!
Allow me to elaborate then -- while a rather good writer, Gruber is not interesting because Gruber is predictable:
1) If it's a subject that favors Apple, he'll write about favoring Apple.
2) If it's a subject that doesn't favor Apple, 99% of the time he'll spin it to death such that it favors Apple.
The formula then to a Gruber post is to take recent news, whatever it's about, make Apple looks good by the end of it.
The only time Gruber is interesting is when he actually does criticize Apple -- and Apple virtually has to start a program of using orphans to power their new office building for him to do it.
The meta-comment is that this is all known ahead of time. Yet every time Gruber makes a blog post 2 things happen on HN.
a) It makes the front page
b) Everybody spends 100 or so comments articulating #1 and #2 above. I mean seriously, are there any comment threads here that aren't in some way about this?
Let's look:
The top rated comment (and thread) is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2891450
The second one is also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890090
The 4th one is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890032
So if the 5th thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2889984
And the 7th: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890017
And the 8th: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890071
And the 9th: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890586
and on and on and on.
Out of 15 threads (and I'm being charitable with what I'm calling a thread, there's really only 4 or 5 with any significant actual discussion) fully 10 of the threads are about #1 and #2 above.
This isn't a signal to noise problem, this is just noise. And worse yet, it's uninteresting noise because this is literally every set of comment threads for every Gruber post.
It's dreadfully dull stuff. So I'm adding my 2 cents into the "let's just stop feeding Gruber by relegating him to not the front page of HN and we don't have to suffer through another front page post with ~70% complaints about his bias" bucket. If people want to read his writing, and know when he posts something new, they can subscribe to his RSS feed.
Battery life is something Gruber likes to talk about a lot, because the open conversation would point arrows right back at him (and Apple). Flash takes battery life, but be fair. It's true to say I couldn't watch movies in Flash for 6 hours, but I can't play Angry Birds for 4 hours, either. In fact, I don't think there is any application I have on my iPhone that would run for 8, 10, 12 hours (screen on), or whatever ridiculous milestone Flash should single-handedly reach. I think the best I've gotten was 6 hours (screen on) of Internet radio.
Think how much real innovation $20 billion could have created if it weren't for the shitty patent system.
The Skype deal felt like just the same...
I get that Gruber's mainly going after the over-the-top Lyons piece (a piece which strikes me as poorly thought out and terribly argued). But it does seem like this is Gruber's first move toward a pivot away from the importance of patents in Android vs. Everyone.
You know, those patents that Gruber has been trumpeting for weeks now as the death knell of Android.
Just ignore those.
[1]: Or cheaper?: See recoiledsnake's comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890038
Gruber seems to be right an awful lot for someone so casually vilified. For example, he took a lot of flack here for defending Apple's move to leave flash out of mobile safari. I think enough time has passed to make clear that he and Apple were right.
The anti-Gruber hate looks more like sour grapes every day.
Another way of asking this question is, can you name three times that Apple and Gruber differed, but Gruber was in the right?
Apple did eventually retire the brushed metal theme and is getting a bit more consistent in the styling of their applications. Still some way to go here, too.
Apple and Gruber has generally diverged in how they think the Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) should be applied. Gruber has called them out for not applying it as consistently as they did in the past.
But regarding the HIG, it seems Gruber has resigned and is now calling the HIG basically defunct.
I think in general, Gruber is not trying to be right/wrong vs Apple, not trying to offer a strong opinion, except in some unusual cases (see: AppStore rejections). Mostly, he is just trying to understand Apple, and to offer his analysis since Apple is famously quiet and other analysts are often clueless as Apple is a bit of an oddball in the corporate world.
I can.
1. The App Store approval nonsense. 2. The missing white iPhone. 3. Software patents. 4. He's also picked on design choices of Apple with iBooks and believes the Kindle app is better.
These have all occurred within the past year alone. It's fine there are those that disagree with Gruber but I find it best to attack on the merit of what is written and not his bias. It is the easy way out.
It's been much more than a year since Steve's blog post about how Flash is unneeded because of HTML5, and I am still waiting for the improvements in Safari so that Flash like functionality can be used in web pages. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
I am not holding my breath though, Apple wants to push developers towards apps and not web pages, because they get to make money on every sale and also because it creates a lock-in for their platform.
Even the most cursory glance at real numbers establishes this as irrelevant. Apple's App Store revenues are measured in millions of dollars. Apple's revenues on hardware are measured in billions. They use the App Store to sell more hardware. It's infrastructure with next to no margin.
I think you'd get a chuckle from the Apple brass if you asked if they were worried that people would stop building apps if only they had access to Flash. Of course they wouldn't — the UX and fiscal rewards are unbeatable.
Apple creates lock-in all on their own by providing a solid set of developer tools and APIs, along with UI/UX patterns that work really well. You get some great stuff on iOS that's tough to build, and so tough to find, elsewhere. Flash wouldn't change that — it's general purpose, not specialized to the platform.
It's a bit like saying you don't eat sewage because it's bad for your health. I mean, that's true, but the real reason you don't do it is because you find it revolting to the senses. Apple may enjoy strategic benefits from their Flash stance along the lines of what's been described here. But their opposition to it comes from much more high-level, basic concerns.
I don't see how you're getting a reversal out of that. Talking about Motorola's problems is only to highlight that Google would not have spent $12.5 billion on the company if not for the patent issues.
That strategy is going to conveniently rely on his readers forgetting his near-obsession with Google's supposed doom at the hands of Apple and Microsoft's patent portfolios.
That's why it is a reversal-- because patents, once so important, probably aren't going to factor into his incessant Google criticism in the future, despite the fact that he has made them the cornerstone of many of his arguments until now.
On the one hand, you're complaining about his supposed "near-obsession" (as opposed to every other person writing on the subject? what's the measurement here?) but on the other you're saying that one sentence is proof that it was all some kind of ruse and he'll never speak of it again. As if patents not figuring into one sentence means he can never say anything about them again. What a great leap that is! He's trying to make a point about something, but you're treating it as if it's a total retraction of every other point he's ever tried to make--even in the same post--because...why? Because it's not just a restatement of what he said last week, in a different context? I don't understand that at all, even under the banner of HN's predictably frothing meme of disdain for the man.
Not only do I not understand that, I don't understand how on earth one man gets such scrutiny about precisely how much he talks about something, down to the sentence, when dozens of sites have been publishing on the same subjects. This is news. When new things happen, people write about them. Google bought Motorola. That's news. But must Gruber (or anyone) interpret or discuss that solely in terms of patents (or any one angle)? Why is commenting on any other aspect of the deal forbidden? Makes no sense.
I don't care if the previous 99 post by the same author are lumps of coal, I want to know whether this one is a diamond.
Only on HN or Reddit is Gruber's pro-Apple stance not the most boring conceivable topic. It's embarrassing to see ostensibly smart people pick it apart, as if it was faceted and nuanced.
I myself love Daring Fireball, because Gruber is an f'ing good writer. But I could give a sh!t about discussing him on HN. Anyone else want to just start flagging these things off the site? Look at these silly comment threads. You'd be doing a lot of people a favor by nipping them in the bud.
Sometime Gruber posts interesting theories or observations, and in that case I'm all about discussing them, but this article is just filler for his core demographic.
This is the reason for the disconnect between the HN commenters and the flame wars. It's just hard for people to understand others almost-bordering-on-religion obsessions and biases.
While you say you'd be fine with banning DF from HN, we all know which segment of HN'ers vote up DF, Asymco and some of Marco's stories here, some of which have very convoluted and shallow arguments/analysis/math which seem cherry picked and tailor-made to prop up one particular company and don't withstand five minutes of reasoned analysis.
The problem is that some of these articles are "something that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" (from the HN guidelines) to a group of people rooting for a company and totally shallow drivel to others, so no wonder it's all a flamefest that isn't going to go away soon.
In fact, I often wish there was a writer with as aserbic a wit and as insightful an analytical mind on the subject of Google (Dan Lyons doesn't qualify, though fake Steve Jobs was pretty funny). Not for the apologia like this piece, but for when writers like Gruber, Marco, and especially John Siracusa are critical of their subject of obsession. The thing I love about Siracusa's podcast (Hypercritical) in particular is that you can really feel true, unadulterated, and unself-conscious devotion to the subject in the unchecked criticism he gives. And I wish that culture existed around Google.
There are plenty blogs that follow Google news in a sort of flat way (9to5google, GoogleOperatingSystem), and Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand provides analysis, but it's all on sort of a surface level. (And, Sullivan is great, but I wouldn't call him a great writer so much as a comprehensively knowledgeable one.)
Maybe what I really want is Steven Levy to write a blog for real.
(Note: I try to be the change I want to see in the world, but I don't have the talent, sources, or time to write as well as I'd like. But I do my best. http://blog.byjoemoon.com/ )
You want to analyze Gruber? Look at his writing style, which is clearly influenced by David Foster Wallace. He's a damn good writer! Otherwise, take him for what he is -- an Apple pundit with one part brilliance, two parts vitriol -- and stop worrying about what he said 6 months ago. Pundits reverse themselves constantly.
EDIT: I forgot to mention his taste for design and art. I'm more interested in his take on Kubrick's films than anything he writes about Apple.
"I’m continually impressed by the quality of the comment threads on Hacker News, for example."
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/16/powazek-comments
I agree with the guy’s opinions, but he’s got to have some flame-retardant skin.
It is also about the topic at hand and people defending Gruber's(or Asymco's or Marco's) pro-Apple bias as if it were somehow insightful or interesting.
> It's embarrassing to see ostensibly smart people pick it apart, as if it was faceted and nuanced.
It is more embarassing to see otherwise smart people defend it in the comment threads (eg. people saying that a sales comparison of 20 year old failed consoles with current Android tablets today somehow indicates that those tablet makers will fail and should shut shop instead of trying).
>Anyone else want to just start flagging these things off the site? Look at these silly comment threads. You'd be doing a lot of people a favor by nipping them in the bud.
Who upvotes these stories(beyond the reach of flagging) with shallow analysis favoring Apple anyway? I don't think it's the crowd arguing against Gruber's posts. It is people that think that the analysis worth spreading and discussing about.
Instead of trees of discussions and accusations of downvoting, we could have just a flat discussion and mutual upvoting undisturbed by counter arguments.
Won't that work fabulously and prevent this nonsense of people having to respond to actual discussion with actual posts instead of just handwaving with one liners?
Criminy. Do I need better evidence for why we should avoid discussing Daring Fireball posts than a comment like this?
This Apple whining reminds me of every other tech site. "Let me turn off all Apple news!" Come on now...
Soon after I started flagging posts from sources I didn't like, my flag links vanished.
Maybe there's only so many flags a day you can make (and I didn't just flag for sources) maybe it's the sources I flagged, maybe it's something I can't even guess that was mentioned at some post at 8am in the morning one day.
"Don't do that"? I can't do that.
He mostly just appears to be a pro-Apple pundit who has a popular blog that gets a lot of revenue in advertising. But I never see Cringely or Dvorak posts upvoted. What gives?
This does not seem to be very reasoned analysis. He calls the CEO childish and Android (the largest smartphone OS in the US?) desperate. This feels like a hyperbolic opinion piece. What should I be getting out of this article?
I'd say the main information content is in who he attacks in the process of boosting Apple. Microsoft and Windows barely get mentioned these days; it's all Google and Android all the time.
See units and marketshare of Android for 2nd quarter 2010 vs. 2011.
http://wmpoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/image66.pn...
Asymco failing at analysis and predictions:
A key diversionary tactic Asymco uses is to combine dumbphone and smartphone sales, so companies like Samsung that are transitioning customers from genuinely low-margin, low-cost, end-of-lifecycle products onto relatively much higher margin Android phones are presented as if they are not doing very well, when in fact they have two seperate business: a rapidly growing and profitable Android business, and a break-even or loss-making dumbphone business that they're winding down.
Notice how much "better" HTC is doing in his stats (despite regular doom'n'gloom predictions from him about them in the last year) because they don't have a dumbphone business.
Given the trajectory of Apple, where would the web be in 10 years if Google wasn't throwing everything, and clearly they are doing so, at keeping their platform alive.
Android is about keeping the web a dominant platform as we shift to the next generation of computing.
Google is right to bet the farm on keeping that endeavor alive.
It appears as though they got backed into the corner, but we've never seen Google make a purchase like this.
It's more expensive than usual. And it's not an obvious up-and-comer.
I imagine the #1 thing they could do would be to start picking off staff from both companies to form a super-group to push the hardware into yet unknown territory.
(As a person whose career interests align with Google's I hope the knock it out of the fucking park.)
Say what you will about Gruber and his Apple fanboyism, this rings true to me. By and large, the article seems very astute.
http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/11/motorolas-sanjay-jha-o...
According to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2888292 the real purchase price is closer to $7B, not $12.5B as stated in the article, due to cash and deferred tax assets.
The Nortel patents went for $4.5 billion and this acquisition gives Google both a ton of patents as well as a company with physical assets that makes the Droid line of phones and the Xoom tablets. Not to mention, Google has $40B in cash or short term investments just laying around to be put to use.
Gruber took a few steps back, somehow saw the hole picture and described it tersely. Maybe one of Gruber's best.
So what is wrong with that loaded closing statement? Well lots. Firstly he admits the patents part was a good move for Google and the Android platform. He also does math and says they bought 3x Nortel patents for 3x the price. So essentially Google got ton of other Motorola stuff (hardware division, cable modem, set top boxes, Android handset software team et.al) for free. Plus so far as I can tell Droid is a pretty well known and fairly successful brand and Motorola's management did the right thing in saving the company from going down under - not exactly misguided. Gruber would perhaps only call them guided if they did not compete with Apple in any way shape or form!
And what did Gruber had to say when Apple spent billions on Nortel patents? Nope not desperation or anything. Just the fact that Google lost was super important and Android was going to be in trouble.
Gruber also leaves us with no insight on what Google could have done better. He also doesn't feel nearly as bad about Google having Apple by the balls on Nortel patents and making them pay good for Nortel patents, as much as he does about Motorola having Google by the balls by just doing what any sane business will do to maximize its valuation. In comparison actually Google got an arguably better deal - 12.5B for 25000 patents, and a whole functional, moderately successful hardware company with diverse business.
P.S. Motorola has done phones long before Apple thought about it. As such they know a whole lot more about the hardware part as I can tell by the signal and voice quality of my Moto phone. Google and you will find many that can make reliable phone calls with Motorola phones when iPhone could never. So dissing Motorola may be fashionable but I think they know better.
Last quarter they sold 4.4 million smartphones, up from 2.7 million the same quarter last year. (If you're more interested in market share as depicted by Asymco's graph then they're growing slightly at around 5% of the smartphone market, compared with say Apple which is growing slightly at around 15%, or Samsung which has gained 15% in the last year to just under 20%.)
Even if you like to play the Asymco game of including dumbphones that don't run Android to make Android look bad, they still increased total phone sales year-on-year, to 11 million, meaning their increased Android sales replaced a smaller number of lost dumbphone sales.
Google spent 12.5B. Motorola has 3B in cash. The stock market thought motorola was worth around 6-7B incl cash (assuming they weren't just factoring in a takeover already).
So google really paid around 6B for the patents, they don't have to do anything to motorola. They can sell all or parts of it, maybe muck around with some of the parts of Motorola other than cell phones. But either way the Nortel auction was 4.5B for JUST patents while google gets a mobile electronics company + patents for its 12B.
And they paid… nearly three times as much...
and a phone company came free?
I don't have the faintest idea whether these patents are of good quality or not, I just wanted to point it out. It's beyond me why so many bright people here on HN think these 25,000 patents might worth the same as (or three times more of) Nortel's patents. They 'might', but we don't know that as a fact. I'd always heard Nortel was strong on patents, but prior to this day I didn't know that Motorola had any patents at all.
Personally I am hoping to hear an announcement of the Xoom 2 as soon as possible.
The buyout can't have been solely for the patents, because Motorola are losing patent battles. It's unlikely that it was just to own a phone manufacturer, because why buy a 3rd rate one at a 60% premium? So why? Because Motorola had Google by the balls and could have further fucked Android up for everyone else.
It's a shame how every discussion of a Daring Fireball article here collapses into 'Gruber is a fanboy', but it's particularly frustrating when it's an insightful article like this one. If he's half as bad as some of you make out, it should be easy to argue the points without resorting to attacking the man.
He is absolutely wrong on whole "patent wars" issue. Of course GOOG is showing its "big brother" attitude time to time but his beloved AAPL is not clean either. This holier than thou attitude sucks!
Moto may be "second-rate" mobile maker. They may be in loss. GOOG is not stupid to shell out 12B "just" for patent portfolio. Always remember GOOG thinks ahead of everyone. People were criticizing GOOG when they made Android open and free. They were criticizing about paying too much money to YouTube (which is on fire now). GOOG is definitely smarter than Gruber.