Google's $12.5-billion purchase of Motorola Mobility is more a “patents” play than a hardware deal, say technology analysts.
Motorola owns a vault of 17,000 patents, with another 7,500 pending. For Google, this deal could solve a lot of its patent drought woes, they opine.
“It is more about the patents that Motorola has…Google had lost out on Nortel patents deal to a consortium comprising Apple and Microsoft,” said tech columnist Mr Ashish Bhatia. Echoing similar views, tech expert Mr Kishore Bhargava said, “Google has always been considered to be patents poor…the acquisition will give them extra leverage.”
Motorola, he said, is sitting on critical patents as far as the telecom business is concerned.
“Having 17,000 patents is not small…It is enough to make Google rich enough to bargain with others,” he said.