Tag Archives: Motorola

Google’s reality distortion field.

Wow, Larry Page, CEO of Google, sure does live in a bubble…

Page expects his employees to create products and services that are 10 times better than the competition

Ok…name one.

…it’s hard to find actual examples of really amazing things that happened solely due to competition. How exciting is it to come to work if the best you can do is trounce some other company that does roughly the same thing?

Truth. Look at all the me-too’s like Android, cheap tablets, “Ultrabooks”, plastic smartphones…hey, what ever happened to Google TV, Wave, et al.?

You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying.

125 billion. In cash. And counting. And they work. As advertised. Much like the Cube…oh wait…

A great deal of my effort is spent making sure that we have a great user experience across our core products. Whether you’re in Chrome or Search or Gmail, it’s just Google, with one consistent look and feel. It’s not a good user experience if there are 50 different ways to share something. That requires integration.

See what I mean? RDF. He’s talking like he is the CEO of Apple.

On Steve Jobs’ “thermonuclear” comment:

How well is that working?

12.5 billion for Motorola. Not a single substantial case won against Apple, but many lost. ITC/EU investigations. FTC pledge to withdraw all FRAND/SEP litigation. Countless failures in court for Google and it’s partners. I’d say it’s working pretty well Larry….

Android has been very successful, and we’re very excited about it.

Really? Still making more money off iOS than Android…

Read the rest at the link above…if you must.

Google agrees to license SEP-patents to rivals.

So much for that one bullet that can kill…

Google, having been under investigation by the US FTC, has agreed to license it’s SEP-patents under FRAND terms to it’s competitors. Furthermore, Google will not seek injunctions to block rivals from using patents essential to key technologies.

12,5 billion…that’s all I’m saying.

Apple and HTC settle all patent litigation

Apple has announced that it has settled all patent litigation with HTC. All lawsuits will be dropped, and the licensing deal is for 10 years, covering all current and all future patents by the two companies.

The terms remain confidential – but I’m sure they’ll leak eventually, at least in part.

So, it seems pretty much everybody but Google, Motorola, and Samsung have settled with Microsoft, and now Apple.

FTC recommends suing Google over FRAND patent abuse

The FTC staff has made a recommendation to it’s commissioners to sue Google for violation of antitrust laws, because of Google’s attempt to block sales of competitors products with standard-essential patents.

AppleInsider reports via Bloomberg:

Google has publicly opposed the use of patents against its Android operating system program, and launched an initiative in 2010 intended to derail public support for H.264, calling the technology patent encumbered” and recommending its own freely obtainable WebM as an alternative. Google has also charged Apple in the court of public opinion with abusing patents, which it has repeatedly characterized as being limited to “rectangles and rounded corners.”

However, after paying $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility, Google has made no changes to the struggling hardware maker’s efforts to block the sale of products by Apple and Microsoft, leveraging its own H.264 patents as a weapon to do so. Motorola has portrayed its lawsuits as an effort to “defend” Android against claims by Apple and Microsoft that Android infringes upon their patents, while also describing its standard essential patents as the “one bullet” needed to kill its opponents.

Open.

I recommend reading both articles quoted.

Googlerola is taking it’s customers for a ride.

Remember the Open Handset Alliance? Yeah, the one that promised to give you the latest Android build for your handset for at least a year after it’s release.

Well, Googlerola has changed it’s mind: It won’t give your Motorola device the latest and greatest Android has to offer, but it’ll give you 100 bucks in credit for a new phone.

So, in addition to the 199 you already paid a year ago, plus the expensive contract, you can now buy a brand new Moto phone for, say 599 off contract (because you already have a contract), and Googlerola will give you a whopping 100 bucks towards that.

You’re being taken for a ride.

Googlerola pulls all tablets, all but three smartphones from german market.

As reported by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents:

The company that Google bought for $12.5 billion to protect Android from patent threats cannot even protect itself.

Areamobile, a high-quality German news website focused on wireless communications devices, reports today (in an article that also mentions last Friday’s ruling) that German customers face a “heavily-shrunk” choice of Android-based Motorola smartphones. I had previously heard something similar from a news agency reporter who is following some of the German Android-related lawsuits. Areamobile noted that Motorola Mobility’s German website lists only three Android-based smartphones — and no tablet computer.

…and let’s not forget how this all started:

But to be clear, now-Google-owned Motorola Mobility is not a victim. It was Motorola Mobility’s choice in the spring of 2011 to sue Apple in Mannheim before Apple filed any lawsuit against it outside the United States, and to sue Microsoft in Mannheim in the summer of 2011, also before Microsoft filed any non-U.S. lawsuit against it. Motorola Mobility was trying to take advantage of the fact that injunctions are routinely granted in Germany — and of German case law relating to standard-essential patents. For the same reason, Samsung also sued Apple in Germany before Apple brought any German litigation against Samsung. And Samsung has not won anything against Apple in this country to date.

Open.

Googlerola won’t upgrade the Photon 4G, Electrify, and Atrix 4G to ICS.

Every few months, it seems, we hear a new version of an old story: the maker of an expensive smartphone announces it won’t be upgraded to the latest version of Android, and consumers cry foul.

…and we’re not even talking about Jelly Bean…

…Motorola told customers they would upgrade the phones for 18 months after they came out, a statement that drove sales of the devices. Second, Google owns both Android and Motorola, making it all the more puzzling why the business units didn’t work together to make an upgrade happen.
Finally, there are signs that for some Android devotees, Motorola’s abandonment of its year-old phones is the last straw.

Open.