(My comment: Since Google doesn't want to play favorites, I think that the least they can do to assure their other Android partners is to buy the IDCC patent portfolio for them, but excluding Motorola from the alliance - so that Motorola would have to license or cross license the patents from them?)
October 3, 2011
By Tiernan Ray
Google‘s (GOOG) chairman Eric Schmidt has been a very visible chairman, doing another TV stint this morning on Bloomberg TV with Erik Schatzker to discuss how Google thinks about its proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility (MMI).
Schmidt remarked that Motorola “as a set of future products, and the things that we’re doing, we’re very, very excited about it,” downplaying the company’s patent holdings as a motive behind the acquisition. “The fact that they also had one of the best portfolios was certainly a component in our decision, but certainly not the only one.”
When pressed on the relative importance of product and patents, Schmidt persisted: “I couldn’t give you a percentage, but the majority of the reasoning had to do with the fact that we benefit from having a hardware partner at Google who knows how to build the next-generation of phones.
“What’s nice about Motorola is that they made a decision to go to Android, I think courageously, three or four years ago, and so we already know that they believe in it, that they can act on it, that they can partner with us.”
Asked about the risk of losing other Android partners, Schmidt said he’d assured partners that Google won’t do anything with Motorola that would “screw up the dynamics of that industry, that we need strong, hard competition among all the Android players, that we won’t play favorites.”
Google shares today are down $17.40, or 3.5%, at $497.94.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2011/10/03/google-we-wont-screw-up-android-schmidt-tells-bloomberg/?mod=google_news_blog
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