Look for a Google TV ad in the not so distant future of an auditorium with a large screen on the stage and an audience full of mesmorized clones staring at the screen, when a Google employee in a running outfit runs down the aisle and throws a large sledgehammer into the TV screen’s face of Steve Jobs<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Google announced it is buying the Mobile Phone business of Motorola for a bit over $12 billion\u00a0\u00a0 At this point, Motorola is a non-player in the Cell Phone market (my first cell phone was an employer provided Motorola pone in about 2000 that was horrible and a large part of why I chose not to own a cell phone until 2 years ago)<\/p>\n
So Google tried to get into the retail cell phone business and failed miserably, barely making a dent –\u00a0since Google has\u00a0no clue about running a retail distribution network.\u00a0\u00a0 What would\u00a0motivate Google to spend such a huge chunk of change on an almost\u00a0defunct mobile cell phone maker?\u00a0\u00a0 One\u00a0word:\u00a0\u00a0 Patents<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n Google is positioning itself as the anti-iPhone software maker.\u00a0\u00a0 The Android operating system <\/span>is optimized to run on cell phones.\u00a0\u00a0 In contrast to Apple’s\u00a0closed archictecture<\/span> and tight control of every aspect of the product including distribution, Google is the Open<\/em><\/strong> cell phone architecture.\u00a0\u00a0 In the words of Steve Jobs “If you want to\u00a0porn on your cell phone, buy an Android phone”<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Google knows much more about its customers than Apple.\u00a0<\/p>\n The biggest weapon Apple\u00a0has against\u00a0the Google Fall Phone Revolution<\/span> is to tie up Google in patent litigation<\/span>, asserting that Android is violating patents owned by Apple.\u00a0\u00a0 By buying up patents from Motorola that go back to the earliest days of portable phones, Google can prevent that kind of attack<\/span>, or countersue and tie up Apple in knots.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 More than likely, the long term objective is Google\u00a0were seek a cross-licensing deal <\/span>with both companies agree to allow each other to use the other company’s patents and declare a truce.<\/p>\n Congress really needs to go back and revisit\u00a0Patent law.\u00a0\u00a0 When the\u00a0Founding Fathers put Issuing\u00a0Patents into the Constitution as a purpose of the Federal Government, I don’t think they had in mind protecting the\u00a0abstract\u00a0features of devices run by\u00a0computer software in order to limit\u00a0future innovation for generations (ot to force it to move to other countries to avoid fighting the wars).<\/p>\n Related: http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2011-08-16\/blackberry-maker-rim-left-in-no-man-s-land-after-google-s-motorola-deal.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Look for a Google TV ad in the not so distant future of an auditorium with a large screen on the stage and an audience full of mesmorized clones staring at the screen, when a Google employee in a running … Continue reading