Everything motorola
After getting regulatory approval in China, Google today wrapped up its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, signalling their entry into the hardware world. As a part of the deal closing, Motorola's CEO Sanjay Jha has stepped down to make way for Google's Dennis Woodside. What does it all mean for Apple?
RIM recently proposed a new nano-SIM card design to counter one proposal made by Apple to the the European Telecommunications Standards Instititute.
Just in case we needed any more convincing that people love their iPhones, the American Customer Satisfaction Index has found through recent surveys that Apple's smartphones are leaving customers the happiest. The iPhone scored 83 on their system, compared to to Nokia, LG and HTC who are all tied at 75.
Apple now has 13.5% of the U.S. mobile market (i.e. not just smartphones), according to recent survey data. Combined with Motorola's drop to 12.8% market share, that puts iPhone in third place behind LG (with 19.4%) and Samsung (25.6%). comScore's data was gathered from 30,000 American mobile customers in the three months leading up to February, and also examined smartphone operating system market share. Of course Android is ruling the roost with 50.1%, which climbed 3.2% since November, while iOS sits at 30.2%, which only grew 1.5% in the same time frame. Meanwhile, BlackBerry and Windows Phone saw drops of 3.2% and 1.3%, respectively.
Apple is butting heads with RIM, Motorola, and Nokia over the next evolution of SIM card sizes. After paving the way for the micro-SIM format, which has since been adopted by Nokia for their Lumia series, Apple is now putting pressure on the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to recognize their nano-SIM format as the next industry standard.
According to some EU court documents, Motorola and Apple had talked about hashing out a licensing deal in late 2011. Given their rough and ongoing patent battles, it's no surprise to hear Apple claim in the documents that their "refusal to accede to this demand led Motorola Mobility to sue Apple in an attempt to exclude Apple’s products from the market.”
Motorola and Apple are still duking it out in courts over a wide variety patents, but recently Apple made a significant step towards victory. A U.S. judge in Chicago ruled that information about Google's acquisition of Motorola is a key part of Apple's claims against Motorola. The ruling also means that Apple we get some key information about the development of Android, and potentially find other cases of infringement there.
A German appeals court has issued a temporary ruling that prevents Motorola (currently in the process of being acquired by Google) from enforcing a ban on Apple iPhones and iPads based on what may be FRAND-absuing terms. Bloomberg reports:
Unfortunate and possibly infuriating news for German iCloud and MobileMe users today, as Apple has apparently been forced to turn off push email as a result of a lawsuit by Motorola Mobility.
Apple is increasingly playing defense against lawsuits from Samsung and Motorola that seek to take iPhones and iPads off the shelves and out of stores. Apple is trying to do the same to their competitors, of course, but there's a subtle difference -- Samsung and Motorola are suing Apple over FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory) patents and are apparently seeking licensing that's anything but fair and reasonable, and may in fact be discriminatory.
