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Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

It was my understanding that the Motorola purchase was solely about acquiring patents, and did NOT include the hardware side of the business at all.

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To the contrary. The purchase included all of Moto Mobility, which is the STB / Phone side of Moto, and must also include patents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility

It's such a huge amount of money. Patents are what they officially say. Obviously, they have partners and they don't want to lose them in the short term, so protecting them seems pretty harmless. But they will inevitably compete at some point in the future. That seems to be one of the reasons behind the "patent story".

The other two might be that they are making so much less money on every device they sell than Apple. It could possibly become a reasonable source of revenue (Google almost always talks about market share of Android, not the revenue).

The last thought, is the big picture of utilizing the emergence of tablets to become a predominant player in the industry. Beyond search. And somehow surpass Microsoft and Windows as the omnipresent platform. That seems really tough.

Time will tell.

Motorola Mobility still makes devices, e.g. Droid.

Third quarter numbers: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-58XVPR/165679343...

No I believe the hardware side of the mobile division is included. But that was just a bonus (or a curse?) for Google who, as you said, just really wanted the patent.

I'm not so sure anymore that was Google's only intent. Google may be later be forced to become an OEM. As of today, it's quite a reality that Samsung (who sells 55% of all Android smartphones), Amazon, Facebook and Baidu won't completely fork Android in their own best interest. It may behoove Google to develop a Nexus line that covers a wide range of prices.

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