reuters.com
The purchase of shares might be part of the deal, in which Lenovo agreed to pay a total of $2.91 billion, with $750 million in Lenovo ordinary shares, $660 million comprised of U.S. cash, and the remaining $1.5 billion in a three-year promissory note.
According to one of our sources, Google had wanted to sell Motorola for some time before striking the agreement with Lenovo because the handset brand has yet to live up to its purchase price, but had to hold off on selling the division for tax reasons. On the other hand, buying Motorola helps Lenovo build out its cell phone business. There were rumors in October that it had submitted a bid for BlackBerry, but was turned down."
Edit: I misread the post, they did buy it after the announcement which means it's public knowledge
The purchase was made after the announcement. Furthermore, it was part of the Motorola transaction itself, and Google didn't exactly gain anything in the short term (Lenovo shares tanked in the days following the transaction).
It's not clear if these are options or contingent obligations. If the latter, the original story may be closer to the truth than this "clarification". Either way, its news that was non-obvious from earlier announcements.
The point is eventually they are sufficiently powerful and there is sufficient cloud computing infrastructure around for these device to offload work to. My parents know of no email clients. They have only encountered web mail, and in terms of convenience, it is absolutely great.
Not ownership of course, but a serious bit of dough at stake non-the-less.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/feb13/02-05de...
Use the pen to annotate pdfs, draw flowcharts, make designs, take notes.
Read flipboard, kindle on your lap.
It is a very good proposition for technical savvy business people. It's not as good as a corresponding laptop(better internals, better keyboard, better monitor) or a corresponding tablet (better design, dimentions, weight, app selection). But it is very well built, has decent battery life, truly portable, slick looking and powerful. If you are not concerned with your friends' opinion on it and you NEED the functionality and convenience of only 1 device, the surface pro 2 is a very good choice. And I imagine it will only get better. I don't use the cover tho. Very expensive without providing much convenience. If you need a keyboard for a quick email or smth like that, the onscreen will do its job like in another tablets and if you are committed to work, it will not suffice.
The title on Reuters is "Google to own $750 million Lenovo stake after Motorola deal closes: HK exchange", which is what it is.
That aside, why does Google need to own stock in companies? Why not return money to investors and let them buy whatever stock they want.
Using their own stock helps them compensate Google for how much they feel Mobility is worth without putting themselves in a tough liquidity position etc.
Tangentially related to this transaction you may or may not be aware that pretty much any company that funds its own insurance (most large companies) are required by law to hold investments that will help carry them over for any insurance claims. So there is some fund they hold that has stocks, bonds, etc. set aside so that they are covered for insurance claims. The same is true of pension funds.
[EDIT] Oh, and they have a 5% stake in lenovo, which should benefit android and chromeos (and maybe keep MS in check).
Giving money back to shareholders is relatively easy, raising it from them if you need it for something is more involved.
And if you're going to hang on to it in some relatively liquid form, you might want to try and get a better return than you would from sitting on a pile of cash.
- you want a seat at the board or at least a hotline to someone up the chain in a key partner company. This will give you insight and influence in your key partner's plans, health, future products, as well as CI.
- drive costs down. Buying a stake in a supplier doesn't necessarily mean you will pay less, but you get some of it back through your stake.
- getting access to know-hows/technology/ consulting/distribution.
- reimbursement for know-hows/technology/consulting/distribution. i.e. you a have substantial distribution channel in a vertical market, but developing it does not align with your focus. You can sell it at a big discount, squeeze it as much as you can, or lease/sell it to a company which will find a tremendous persistent value in it. Compensating you according to the value they gain in hard currency is difficult, even impossible for smaller companies. Getting equity or options in the partner company while leasing/selling your asset to them will ensure you get maximum value out of an under utilized asset.