EU and US Approve Google-Motorola Deal 187
angry tapir writes "European regulators have given Google the green light to take over Motorola Mobility. The U.S. $12.5 billion deal faced strong opposition from open source and consumer rights advocates, including Consumer Watchdog, but the European Commission announced on Monday that the acquisition could go ahead, without conditions."
Later in the day the DOJ announced an end to its investigation, greenlighting the acquisition in the U.S. as well.
Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple might be the ultimate loser (Score:5, Insightful)
With Google standing behind Motorola and Microsoft standing behind Nokia, Apple will be facing tough challenges, both in marketplace and in courtrooms around the world
Re:Apple might be the ultimate loser (Score:5, Funny)
With Google standing behind Motorola and Microsoft standing behind Nokia...
Interesting analogy. Please allow me to extend it a little, if you will. "Google standing behind Motorola, owning it, and Microsoft standing behind Nokia with a garrot around its skinny corporate neck..."
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With Google standing behind Motorola and Microsoft standing behind Nokia...
Interesting analogy. Please allow me to extend it a little, if you will. "Google standing behind Motorola, owning it, and Microsoft standing behind Nokia with a garrot around its skinny corporate neck..."
Google is helping Motorola out of the water, Microsoft is holding Nokia under the water.
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
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They won't be suing Apple, nor Microsoft out of existence.
Motorola will be doing most of the suing I bet (at least for the patent portfolio it's already holding). Since Apple and Microsoft are using intermediaries to do some of their suing, I would expect Google to do a little bit of the same as well. Using proxies would compartmentalize some of the risks of losing some lawsuits (I would assume).
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Motorola will be doing most of the suing I bet...
I bet not. Would you care to put a dollar figure to the size of your bet?
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This will be very interesting. I see three different players in this standoff:
Apple:
Decent hardware - not totally high end, but certainly enough for what they allow on them.
User-friendly operating system - Most of the "masses" think it is wonderful and easy to use.
Microsoft:
Aging Hardware - I think that while they had great phones ten or fifteen years ago, they haven't been keeping up with the curve save a few notable exceptions. (I could be wrong, feel free to correct me. Wasn't the N900 the last good thin
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Aging Hardware - Again, I can't really think of the last fantastic Motorola that everyone wanted to rush out and buy.
Seriously? The Droid Razr is one of the hottest phones out right now.
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The Droid 4 has the best hardware of any phone right now, I'm not a big fan of the software but I'm considering buying one and changing the OS (running some kind of GNU/Linux on it, or rooted Android if I have no other choice).
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Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're an idiot if you think this was a acquisition meant to destroy Apple. It's quite the opposite: it's a defensive acquisition. It's a bunch of Cold War maneuvering: you fire, I fire. Any lawsuit big enough to destroy Apple (doing my best to type that without laughing) would surely come at the hands of Apple firing everything they have. Hopefully this will just keep everyone's lawyers at bay, and everyone can focus on making cool stuff.
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Yes, defensive [arstechnica.com].
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
And with Motorola Mobility it seems Google gets a nice little patent war chest. I can't wait until they sue Apple out of existence to be honest.
I think this move by google is an excellent one from a business perspective because they did indeed buy Moto Mobility for the patents and this will now allow them to have real leverage and ownership of key patents that are used on mobile telephony.
It will also ensure that android continues to be actively developed.
People need to start treating these companies a bit more fairly, a lot is a stake and the more competition there is, the more innovation there is and the better (i.e. lower) prices we pay as consumers.
IMHO if apple had their way, everyone would have an iphone, ipad, imac, itunes account, icloud storage and apple undies to go with it. That would lead to them winding back on innovation and leave us with no other choices....a very boring world to live in. They would also charge way more for their over prices products then they do as is in that scenario.
Lets also be honest here and admit that apple does not play real fair at the manufacturing/patent levels with other companies, competitors and also how they handle production by way of out sourcing it. IN fact they royally screw us over on pricing here in Australia so I am all for anything that forces them to give us the end user a fairer deal and better value for our hard earned dollars.
Now before anyone says i am anti this or that, I have an apple macbook pro and I also use MS products extensively in my role at work. After 15yrs in the industry i care more for things being fit for purpose then i do for brand names so save me the flame.
peace.
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It is about lawsuits (Score:3)
Namely Apple suing Motorola over patent infringements regarding Android. Apple has been careful not to sue Google, so Google took the hint and bought one of the defendants, namely Motorola.
This is a good thing. It means that Apple can no longer go around intimidating Android vendors regarding patents without confronting the software vendor. The short-term verdict will probably be a mixed loss on both sides, but the long-term victory will be to Google and Android.
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because its rational for you to passionately love one company (an ad network)
I stopped reading after "ad network" because someone who describes Google as such is either biased against Google or for Apple, which makes your comment no more rational than the first post.
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Yes, because its rational for you to passionately love one company (an ad network)
I stopped reading after "ad network" because someone who describes Google as such is either biased against Google or for Apple, which makes your comment no more rational than the first post.
What is their primary source of revenue? How do you think they subsidize Gmail, google earth, Google search, Google Translate and their other "Free" properties? Do you really think there are no strings attached?
Some of you have the gaul to call Apple device users blind fanboys and yet you would blindly cheerlead for a company that views you as their product? Look at their balance sheets and that will tell you what their primary business is.
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Are you under the mistaken impression that if you are against Apple that you're a Google supporter? (or vice versa for that matter) That would be a gross simplification of the matter. Or perhaps I'm just weird in that I trust neither. They are what they are and I recognize them for what they are and trust them accordingly.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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They have more income than just advertising.... admittedly it is a large amount of their revenue but there is more than just that.
For example here in the UK the ISP Sky Broadband uses Google Apps for its customer email. I think the last financial update was 11-12 million customers or so... Each of those has a Sky email account with Google.... and those dont' come that cheap at that bulk...
I'm sure other ISPs do the same - and that's before looking at businesses or educational institutions using it and the r
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It has been interesting watching Bonch lately. He drops off the radar for a few days, then suddenly has the first post on numerous stories for a day or two. All of his first posts are modded +5 the instant the story hits. Any posts like these that point out his shilling and trolling are immediately modded -1 Troll. Now I can't turn away from any Apple or Google story until I find Bonch or his other accounts and see how they've been pumping the thread.
My only negative mod in six months or more was this r [slashdot.org]
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Your scoring breakdown:
claiming housewives took over
claiming suburbanites are on
claiming upper-middle-class cares about
bonus for Romney tie-in = -20 troll
Your total: -50
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple isn't "an electronics maker". They design electronics, buy a lot of Samsung components and have poor Chinese people work 18 hours a day to assemble them.
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple isn't "an electronics maker". They design electronics, buy a lot of Samsung components and have poor Chinese people work 18 hours a day to assemble them.
Apple and every other company that outsourced it's production and assembly to places where they can get lots of cheap labour and can rely upon the local government to ignore corporate abuses and crack down hard with riot police, teargas, water-cannon and gestapoesque security services every the workers decide they have had enough and stage a protest. No matter how you turn it you are supporting worker abuse somewhere every time you go to the supermarket and buy something. Even if you only buy those "Fair trade" politically correct products, the cargo ship that brought those goods to your country was built by abused shipyard workers who work 16 hour per day 7 days a week to churn out ship hull components under totally miserable conditions and is crewed by Russian and Philippine sailors who don't even enjoy the minimum in safe and proper working conditions and it goes on from there.
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, if you refuse to buy because of that, you're supporting even worse life conditions than those abuses.
And more: Chinese factories are already automating because of rising labor costs, so even if you force wages to rise that might be counter-productive if you really want to help the workers, since they'll simply be replaced by machines.
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And yet, if you refuse to buy because of that, you're supporting even worse life conditions than those abuses.
And more: Chinese factories are already automating because of rising labor costs, so even if you force wages to rise that might be counter-productive if you really want to help the workers, since they'll simply be replaced by machines.
That sounds like rationalizing if I ever heard it. Let's face it, you can either take a stand or not.
There's no amount of talking or pragmatic compromise that will solve a basic problem of disrespecting human dignity in the workplace.
If you're genuinely okay with this behavior, then that's one thing. If you're not okay with it, don't reason away your ethics because you want an iPhone.
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That sounds like rationalizing if I ever heard it. Let's face it, you can either take a stand or not.
There's no amount of talking or pragmatic compromise that will solve a basic problem of disrespecting human dignity in the workplace.
The rationalizers here are the ones that are trying to assign the conditions of prosperity to dirt poor countries. China GDP/Capita, after adjusting for inflation and purchasing power, is about US$6500.
That pie only goes so far no matter how you slice it. You can stick your head in the sand and ignore this fact, but that neither makes you right nor gives you the moral authority to criticize others. You simply dont know what you are talking about, but instead have to throw around worthless sound-bites lik
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Despite your ignominious ad hominem, I don't have to rationalize anything, since I don't have a choice: I can't afford iPhones even if I wanted one.
There's no amount of talking or pragmatic compromise that will solve a basic problem of disrespecting human dignity in the workplace.
Sure. Stop buying the stuff and the disrespect for human dignity in the workplace goes away, because the workplace part ceases to exist. Of course, there'll be a new problem called famine and worse poverty, but since that's not caused directly by you, it's fine, right?
Unlike the starving subsistence farmer, the women and children in the sneaker factory are working at slave wages for our benefit--and this makes us feel unclean. And so there are self-righteous demands for international labor standards: We should not, the opponents of globalization insist, be willing to buy those sneakers and shirts unless the people who make them receive decent wages and work under decent conditions.
This sounds only fair--but is it? Let's think through the consequences.
First of all, even if we could assure the workers in Third World export industries of higher wages and better working conditions, this would do nothing for the peasants, day laborers, scavengers, and so on who make up the bulk of these countries' populations. At best, forcing developing countries to adhere to our labor standards would create a privileged labor aristocracy, leaving the poor majority no better off.
And it might not even do that. The advantages of established First World industries are still formidable. The only reason developing countries have been able to compete with those industries is their ability to offer employers cheap labor. Deny them that ability, and you might well deny them the prospect of continuing industrial growth, even reverse the growth that has been achieved. And since export-oriented growth, for all its injustice, has been a huge boon for the workers in those nations, anything that curtails that growth is very much against their interests. A policy of good jobs in principle, but no jobs in practice, might assuage our consciences, but it is no favor to its alleged beneficiaries.
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html [mit.edu]
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and so, I should continue to support companies that pay subsistence wages ? and ensuring that they will always be subsistence wages helps them how, exactly ?
My point is that subsistence wages are better than no wages.
And subsistence wages won't "always be". Wages in China have been rising year after year, much like what happened in other places where the process started earlier.
But force the raise too soon, and you'll ensure a transition to a richer society never happens.
The fact is that these countries could easily enforce policies where the employees would get paid better and we would still be able to buy cheap crap. You forget that they get shit wages because Mitt Romney doesn't have enough houses, not because that's what they have to be paid to be competitive.
Sorry, but that's not true. Certain Chinese factories are already using machines instead of workers because the wages are rising fast. Raising the costs of employment would just accelerate that
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Funny)
Apple isn't "an electronics maker". They design electronics, buy a lot of Samsung components and have poor Chinese people work 18 hours a day to assemble them.
Importers and purveyors of Chinese electronics seems like a good description to me.
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Hilarious that this was marked as flamebait. I honestly think that what you're describing is as bad, if not worse, than "fanboyism". Of course, this is Slashdot, where hate is the word of the day. For years, it was Microsoft. Everyone cheered at the various court decisions: the monopoly ruling, the EU requirements. They were just salivating over the day when Microsoft would be disassembled by the courts and destroyed by Linux's inevitable victory in the desktop space. (LMAO even typing that) None of it ever
Consistent pattern, in fact (Score:4, Interesting)
Incidentally, over the next few years for much of the world outside the USA, the primary means of computing and access to networks will be a very small computer (phone or tablet) running a POSIX-compliant OS. Linux on the desktop is happening; it is just happening on the next evolution of the desktop.
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you can persuade your customer to tattoo your name on their chest, they probably will not switch brands."
-- An Indiana University professor on Harley Davidson owners
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I don't know about loving Google but it makes sense to hate Apple for their bad corporate behavior, among other reasons.
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Christian? American? Republican/Democrat?
I generally agree with this "Fight Club" point of view. You are not the money in your bank account, your car or your brand name preferences. But I would go further.
That's just a fad (Score:2)
Apple has the most brand loyal customers on the planet
It's just a fad
Just like any other fads, this "Apple frenzy fad" will become stale, people will lose interest in Apple, once a new-kid-in-town with new fangle tricks appears
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Just like any other fads, this "Apple frenzy fad" will become stale, people will lose interest in Apple, once a new-kid-in-town with new fangle tricks appears
Where have you been since 1984? Apple users are not customers, they are a fan club.
Re:That's just a fad (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple has the most brand loyal customers on the planet
It's just a fad
Just like any other fads, this "Apple frenzy fad" will become stale, people will lose interest in Apple, once a new-kid-in-town with new fangle tricks appears
I used to say the same thing. Now I'm starting to think they've secured a niche as a status symbol. Much like Gucci or Prada handbags, many people buy apple because they want other people to see them walking around with that apple product. Have you seen vehicles with a white apple bumper sticker? I think the mere existence of such a thing is proof of this.
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Here's another idea. Perhaps Apple now represents a recognisable, trusted brand. People may think (rightly or wrongly) that anything Apple sells is probably well made, works well, and is reasonably priced for a name brand.
Much like HP used to be. Once upon a time you could trust that anything HP made was high quality, and well designed and therefore probably worth the money. Even if there were cheaper alternatives, you could "trust" HP.
Now, perhaps interest and "fanboyism" over Apple will fade. But unless t
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Well, they do give them away with their products, but of course, not everyone elects to stick them on their cars.
Some people just stick them on their home-built Hackintoshes instead, so that they can comply with the Mac OS X licensing requirement that it only be run on "Apple-branded computers"...
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Now I'm starting to think they've secured a niche as a status symbol. Much like Gucci or Prada handbags
That might be the most insightful thing I have read in a long time.
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Re:That's just a fad (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like any other fads, this "Apple frenzy fad" will become stale, people will lose interest in Apple
Assuming they don't really have specific uses for Apple products, but then again it's not expensive to have one lying around for compatibility just as many people have Windows machines (or VMs) for that. Apple do make great products and they are high quality but there's no denying they've lost their exclusivity, the iPhone 4 (pretty sure this is still true) is the single most common smartphone in the world and the 3GS is dirt cheap (i've got 2 in my drawer, one relegated to being my workout ipod) which does push them into commodity device territory, like owning a Nokia in the late 90s/early 00s. But hey, if they can maintain their 'cool' image, continue to build high quality products and keep pace with industry innovation then there's no reason to think they will fall from their lofty position.
Re:That's just a fad (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has the most brand loyal customers on the planet
It's just a fad
Just like any other fads, this "Apple frenzy fad" will become stale, people will lose interest in Apple, once a new-kid-in-town with new fangle tricks appears
I've heard that mantra so many times before when the iMac came out, when the iPod came out, when the iPhone came out, when the iPod touch came out and when the iPad 1 came out. Are you seeing a pattern here? I keep on seeing people on slashdot predicting the demise of Apple year after year.
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If you can't recognize that the iPhone is a good phone, you're just as bad as Apple "fanboys".
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't recognize that the iPhone is a good phone, you're just as bad as Apple "fanboys".
iPhone is an OK phone, but the 4s is quite dated. Any company marketing a flagship cellular device with no 4G support at this stage in the game has missed the boat. That goes double for iphone since the data consumption on the thing is legendary.
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If you can't recognize that the iPhone is a good phone, you're just as bad as Apple "fanboys".
iPhone is an OK phone, but the 4s is quite dated. Any company marketing a flagship cellular device with no 4G support at this stage in the game has missed the boat. That goes double for iphone since the data consumption on the thing is legendary.
You have a funny idea of "dated". LTE was pretty useless in a lot of countries until recently so having it is really nothing other than a battery drain in regions with no or spotty LTE coverage whereas the 4S supports HSPA+ speeds in more countries and regions that LTE is offered.
The supposedly "faster" CPU in the Nexus is hampered by a combination of unoptimized software and poorer GPU performance. See the following video encoding example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhu8zfIVZ40&feature=related [youtube.com]
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While I'm no Apple fanboy(Apple free and loving it), I agree here. /cannot/ get signal with either.
Up in the Northwest USA(washington/idaho), it's actually hard to get even 2.5g GSM service everywhere, and 3G is relegated to the cities mostly. I'm on T-Mobile, btw, which has roaming agreements with AT&T, so I get both networks... yet there's still areas I
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I'm on T-Mobile, btw, which has roaming agreements with AT&T, so I get both networks...
Actually, you don't - at least not in most places. In order to decrease roaming charges (and prevent phones from draining battery deciding between two sets of towers) your home carrier only allows roaming in geographic areas (called LACs) where they have no infrastructure at all and another carrier does. So your carrier could have only two towers in a county and another carrier has 50, but since your carrier has some infrastructure there you are not going to see any towers from the other carrier. You are on
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4G (well, LTE which really is still a 3G technology that American marketing droids have decided to wrongly call 4G) isn't yet available in very many places at all, globally speaking. Even in the US it's only in the large cities, and remember that Apple sells far more iPhones outside the US than in it. Plus given that the iPhone 4S supports HSPA+, that allows speeds that are more than fast enough for a mobile device already, regardless of all this 3G/4G/infinityG OMG terminology. (Remembering also that LTE comes with a tradeoff: rather crap battery life compared to HSDPA/HSPA/HSPA+)
Once you see 4G rolling out to more than a handful of places I'm sure it will be in the iPhone. In fact it will probably be in the next iteration due for release in the next 6 months.
I guess I'm just spoiled. In the area I live in, almost every carrier has 4g service. Even second rate carriers like Metro (aka Cricket I think) have 4g around here. It may not be "true 4g" but it's much much faster than 3g. On Metro (my kids have this carrier) they get about 5Mbps on average and on Verizon it's closer to 40Mbps (for about twice the price). That's faster than my fiber connection to the house, btw. Either way, both smoke what I've seen for 3g speeds around here.
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Well yeah, another factor is that not all 3G is created equal. Here in Australia, Telstra has HSPA+ networks that you can easily pull 20 Mbps+ off, real world speed. So the impetus for 4G is less than, say, you were stuck with a 3G network that only managed a few Mbps (which is quite common).
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Even in the US it's only in the large cities...
That's actually not true. I live in Appleton, WI (which I would classify as a small city), and Verizon rolled out LTE here about 3 months ago. It doesn't diminish the rest of your point, but LTE is more widespread in the US than one might expect.
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Heh I'm very familiar with Appleton actually ... I spend several months a year in the Fox Cities. I suppose I should have qualified my post with "LTE is not available ~on GSM networks~ in many areas yet". The US CDMA carriers (i.e. Verizon, Sprint) are ahead of the game when it comes to LTE deployment. And I keep forgetting the iPhone comes in a CDMA variant now in the US (doh!)
However, I'm not American and thus when I'm in the States I'm roaming using my unlocked (GSM) phone (or using a local AT&T SIM)
Re:Let the lawsuits begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone is a good phone, so are a few Android phones.
The fanbois show their true colours when they cannot accept any other phone or brand is as good as theirs.
They also do when they go on and on and on about how crap all the other phones are and how wonderful theirs is.
Reality, as always, is usually smack down the middle.
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My current phone and the 2 phones I had before it (that is, all the PDA-phones I've owned) let me download, install, compile, run and freely distribute any apps I want for it, no fees or special licensing required. By that difference alone all iPhones are inferior.
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Oh and since I'll be called a Google fanboy for dissing an Apple product, none of them were Android phones. All those phones allowed open development and app distribution out of the box and were manufacturer-supported as such.
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>> Apple has the most brand loyal customers on the planet, every steaming pile of shit they serve up is pute gold to these people
This was modded as insightful?!
Yes, I've been on /. a while but that doesn't mean I stop hoping for intelligence.
Opposition from open source? (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct me I'm wrong, as I'm not in the know, but wouldn't this be a plus for rom development on motorola droid phones?
Re:Opposition from open source? (Score:5, Interesting)
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He supposedly did something in Europe to do with FOSS a long time ago.
Nowaday's he's employed by Microsoft, and the use of the term FOSS is merely a weak attempt to add legitimacy to his FUD.
Re:Opposition from open source? (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct me I'm wrong, as I'm not in the know, but wouldn't this be a plus for rom development on motorola droid phones?
It could.
With HTC officially unlocking its bootloaders and Samsung officially hiring the Cyanogen guy (and then encouraging him to continue doing his custom rom development on the side -- with a healthy salary and no strings attached), custom Android rom development is looking very promising all around.
Thank heavens (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully this will give Apple and Microsoft reason to pause for thought on its lawsuits against the Android ecosystem.
I'm getting tired of reading about a new assault every week; 17,000 patents should even things out enough to force the big players to negotiate and co-operate (assuming of course that Apple won't try to continue the Jobs dream of killing competition entirely...).
Also, I'll love seeing any hardware to come out of this.
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Re:Thank heavens (Score:4, Informative)
...some kickass tablets and phones running Jelly Bean or Krispy Kreme, or whatever those letters end up being.
Krispy Kreme is trademarked. Jelly bean seems not to be.
A little known fact, the reason Android is now using generic pastry names is because they were originally using well-known android names, but they were afraid they'd get sued by the IP owners of those Android characters.
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I'm skeptical Apple will stop its lawsuits.
I have every expectation that Apple will stop its lawsuits because I am familiar with the capabilities of the Google legal team. And no I don't mean its outside contracters :-)
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17,000 patents should even things out enough to force the big players to negotiate and co-operate
It is a well-known fact that an arms race is a proven method to increase cooperation between the big players. The unfortunate side effect is that once one of the big players crumble, their weapons end up sold to terrorists and megalomaniac dotcom tycoons.
Re:Thank heavens (Score:4, Funny)
The advent of IPv6 allows the requisite number of phone home patent chips to allow auto-negotiation of any lawsuits that may come about from now on.
But to limit the number of complaints about patents on Slashdot, I suggest we set an arbitrary limit on the number of patents allowed to exist at any one time.
I think 640K ought to be enough for everybody.
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17,000 patents should even things out enough to force the big players to negotiate and co-operate
Yeah, the only thing keeping smaller players in the game as it is right now is that the large manufacturers aren't cooperating. Should this cooperation you speak of happen, you can bet it'll be cooperating to decide who gets to monopolize what. Basically, like the RIAA and MPAA do now: One business per industry please.
Google really does hold back the evil. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're by no means perfect, but when compared to other companies their size Google does proportionately less evil.
I'm hoping their search engine finds the "nuclear" patent holed up somewhere in Motorola's recently acquired portfolio that allows them to put an end to the other companies sue everyone else wars between Apple, Samsung and every other manufacturer out there. The "one patent to trump them all" wielded by Google that could put everyone else in a hurt locker unless they calm down and agree to play nice would be a dream and allow honest development and competition to resume.
I'm dreaming I know. I would like wielding of patents as a weapon to go away, but hopefully a big one in the rights hands could fix some issues.
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Well, there's another approach.
Instead of threatening to sue everyone into oblivion if they don't calm down they can at least use "prior patent" to deflate everyone else's claims and offer licensing at the mentioned reasonable fee, or even free to Android manufacturers.
That's assuming they find something they can deflate the other claims with.
Link from Ars (WTF???) (Score:5, Insightful)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/regulators-to-google-you-can-buy-motorola-but-we-still-dont-trust-you.ars [arstechnica.com]
FTA:
But regulators on both sides of the pond went out of their way to warn Google not to abuse the patents, with the Justice Department comparing Google's patent statements unfavorably with what Justice views as more responsible statements made by Apple and Microsoft.
The fuck are they smoking? Am I missing something gigantic staring at me in the face? How is Google's record of 'patent statements' remotely close to being worse than those of Apple and Microsoft? Does the US DOJ actually look favorably down on Apple continuous patent 'I'll sue you out of business' hissy-fits? When has Google ever abused a patent? Has Google ever even attacked another company with patents?
In any case, what I'd love to see is for Google to create a pool with these patents (haven't they done this already?) where anyone who enters the pool consents to agree not to sue others in the same pool. It wouldn't do much to stop patent trolls though, unless they find a way to kick out members who support them. Am I dreaming? Or should a legitimately don't-be-evil company do this?
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Your numbers look a little low. According to House of Representative lobbying disclosure forms (available online), Apple spent about $2.4 million on Congressional lobbying for 2011. Compare that to $9.5 million for Google for 2011 and a paltry $40,000 for the U.S. Apple Association. The House of Representatives has a pretty handy search tool, but you must enter your searches in all caps for some reason.
FYI, this is only direct lobbying and not how much they spent on campaigns, pacs, etc. Unfortunately,
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Motoroogle made some pretty bizarre statements about their FRAND patents last week, to the EU and IEEE. And they're demanding 2.25% of the retail price from Microsoft (for H.264) and Apple (for cell shit). If all the FRAND players charged at that rate, patent licenses would exceed 100% of the retail price.
Yeah, H.264. Google is pushing WebM because they're afraid of H.264 patent trolls. To date, Motorola is the only H.264 patent troll.
Plus attempting to cancel Apple's license (via Qualcomm's chips)
Re:Link from Ars (WTF???) (Score:5, Insightful)
The main result of how the EU - and now apparently the US - are interpreting FRAND and standards seems to be that companies who've spent a fortune on actual R&D to make mobile networks and smartphones actually possible will find that they aren't actually allowed to sell phones using the technology they developed because someone else has got a huge thicket of patents on daft things like detecting phone numbers in messages and offering to call them. Worse still, they'll have to offer up the technology they developed to the company driving them out of business at a knock-down price.
There's a reason why mobile phone companies have insisted on comprehensive cross-licensing deals in the past. What the EU is doing is effectively favoring crap patents over ones based on actual, fundamental R&D that everyone benefits from. Do you think there'll be any companies willing to help develop the next-generation 4G and 5G standards after this, if they won't actually be able to make any money from it?
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With the US economy going from manufacturing to consuming and litigating its in the best interest of the US law to set precedents so that US companies can win cases easily.
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I think they are concerned about this [blogspot.com.au].
Contrast with the statements Apple [blogspot.com.au] and Microsoft [blogspot.com.au] have made.
They don't even have to "neuter" their patents - they only have to agree to licence any essential patents on reasonable terms.
FUD? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the linked articles in the post, consumer advocates (or, more accurately, at least one consumer advocate that is associated with Microsoft [techrights.org]) are opposed to this move because it gives Google "unprecedented dominance" in the mobile market.
None of the linked articles give any evidence of "strong opposition from open source... advocates". Can anyone explain or give examples of this supposed "strong opposition"? As is, this appears to be a mostly invented controversy.
ICS on Moto Hardware (Score:3)
Now maybe there is a chance I can get ICS on my Moto droid 3. Admittedly the Droid 3 only had a lifespan of 6 months. But it would be nice if Moto actually supported it.
Good Hardware/Software (Score:2, Informative)
Unlock the bootloaders? (Score:2)
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Perhaps Google will persuade Motorola to unlock the bootloaders of their phones...
Assuming Google owns Motorola, pursuasion becomes unnecessary.
Ohhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhh (Score:2)
I don't have any illusions that this will lead to more freedom for users or anything, or even that it will lead to more choice in the marketplace, but I'm pretty damned sure that it's going to result in more products that I want to buy because they're not taking a gigantic shit on me any time I try to use them the way I want to use them.
Color me weird. I like both. (Score:2, Insightful)
I like both Apple and Google, use lots of both.
But when I got my latest phone, I decided against Android simply because the handset makers and the carriers pissed all over Vanilla Android to "improve" it.
So now I get Google building a standard. Unlocked. Updateable. Frequency agile. GSM. Mobile world wide.
Heck, I even want Google to build their own cellular network or at the least a MVNO.
This is not a fight between Apple and Google. Its a fight against both of them against the horrid carriers and clue
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So now I get Google building a standard. Unlocked. Updateable. Frequency agile. GSM. Mobile world wide.
Uh, that's more or less what the Google Nexus (Nexus One, Nexus S, and now currently the Galaxy Nexus) phones are. (Although Google is sometimes a little slow at pushing out updates, but they get there eventually.) The Nexus phones all come with stock Android - no extra vendor software or configuration.
Although I'm not sure about 'Mobile world wide'. Your ability to use your phone somewhere (like, say, another country) will always be dependent on your service provider. But everything else you want is there
Re: (Score:2)
Let the battle begin!
Continue, you mean. And Apple's orc army is not doing particularly well.
Motorola Mobility has a big chuck of the cable sys (Score:2)
Motorola Mobility has a big chuck of the cable systems TV and HSI / phone.
Why only the US & the EU? (Score:2)
This spells doom for IP terrorism (Score:4, Informative)
This spells doom for the IP terrorist policies of Apple and Microsoft, and is a probable "limiting factor" for Microsoft's phone ambitions. And obviously, this is all fine for Linux.
Privacy? (Score:2)
There is a cell phone provider that doesn't rape its customers for personal information? At least Google isn't a multimedia company sniffing customer traffic for file sharing.
Odd name (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Haha I always thought the same thing.
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Just looks like paid-for reality distortion to me.
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It can't be Eric "privacy is for criminals" Schmidt?