Android

Google has just announced that they're buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in an attempt to supercharge the Android platform. While the move will bring Google into the handset manufacturing business for the first time, potentially setting them up to deliver the same type of unified, integrated experience Apple is famous for, Google maintains they'll be running Motorola as a separate business. Which raises some important questions:

1. How will the play out for other Android licensees like HTC and Samsung? (Microsoft making the Zune killed the PlaysForSure alliance.)
2. Will all future Nexus-type devices come from Motorola going forward?
3. Will all future Motorola phones run stock Android going forward? (no more Blur.)
4. Is Motorola's patent portfolio strong enough to provide cover against Microsoft and Apple lawsuits?

Quotes from Larry Page and Sanjay Jha after the break.

[Google PR, Google Blog, Android Central coverage]

Paul Thurrott of Windows Super Site is never one to let a good piece of anti-Apple link bait go by, but this time he's turned his attention towards Google's Android, and how Google "dumping" it on the market for free could be a greater anticompetitive act than Microsoft or Apple patent litigation.

Google SVP and Senior Legal Officer, David Drummond has blogged about the recent trouble Google and their manufacturing partners have had over patents with the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle.

Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.