Google also acquired Motorola’s TV business
The big news today: Google is buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Earlier this year Motorola splitted up, as the company struggled to take on competitors like Apple. The first half Motorola Mobility was mainly focused on consumers: ‘Mobile Devices and Home Devices’, the other half Motorola Solutions focussed on ‘Enterprise Mobility and Networks’. With the knowledge of today, this was probably to make “an acquisition” possible.
But, Google not only acquired the mobile devices part of Motorola but also the Home Devices, which include Set-Top-Boxes. When Motorola splitted the company in two, they stated:
“By combining mobile devices and home entertainment equipment, such as TV set-top boxes, Motorola hopes to provide “multiscreen” experiences in which users consume content on phones, other mobile devices, and home entertainment equipment.”
Motorola also sold their TV division because they knew it would leave it scarred and cripled behind after the acquisition of their Mobile division. They already worked on a ‘multiscreen’ experience and played around with their mobile MOTOBLUR interface on their Set-Top-Boxes. MOTOBLUR is an interface that has also been used to skin Android.
Talking about Android, there even have been ungoing rumors that Motorola was working on Android-powered Set-Top-Boxes before. Google TV is also Android based, but hasn’t been able to reach the masses. Yet. Motorola has been market leader in Set-Top-Boxes for years.
Google didn’t emphasize on the possibilities for Google TV in their statement. But they didn’t emphasize that much on smart phones either. They said it would ‘supercharge Android’.
Yesterday Google launched Google+ including a videochat. Design Shack wrote a really got article on why it’s so interesting, even with hundreds of competitors in the market. “There’s no awkward protocol here, the concept of the system is structured so that you’re supposed to launch video chats with people.”?
