Google to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings, but why?

To strengthen its mobile business, Google announced on Monday that it would acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the cellphone business that was split from Motorola, for $40 a share in cash, or $12.5 billion.

Motorola is second biggest cell phone manufacture in the world.







And according to cnet.com the Motorola phantom 4G is even the second best smart phone on the market.










But in June 2011 data from Nielsen for the US shows that Motorola is only number 5 smart phone manufacture:






Motorola did fail to have same success with smart phones as they had it with the RAZR. Over the RAZR's four-year run, Motorola sold more than 130 million units, becoming the best-selling clamshell phone in the world (and is still today).

However Motorola is still a big name under cell phones and had the first real competition to Apple iPhone with the DROID.

The offer, Google’s largest ever for an acquisition is 63 percent above the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday. Many Motorola manufactures phones run on Google’s Android software and is therefore a good fit. The acquisition will bring Google very close to Apple in terms of phone manufacturing.

But Motorola would bring much more to the table. Google would gain 17,000 patents and a lot of service.

When Google first started to sell their own HTC phone called Nexus One, it was a disaster. The phone was only sold on Google website and Google was not able to give the needed customer support. Buying Motorola would Google give expertise in service and a sales force which knows already to get phones into retail stores.

This buy could catapult Google very far on top and shows where Google want to go next. If the deal goes through, it will take at least 12 months till we the merger comes to success, however the Motorola unit could help Android OS a lot. The biggest issue for Android is the variety of different phones and form factors. Therefore many Android OS versions are on the market and the user seldom knows which one is available for the phone. And it makes harder for developer to build and test an app against all Android phones and Android OS versions.

Apple success is, that there is only one phone with max 3 generations (iPhone 2 is not anymore with latest OS supported). This makes it so easy for Apple to build a perfect OS and easier for developer to build apps. As a result most iPhone apps are better in quality and iPhone users are more willing to pay for an app. The iOS is much smoother and iPhone users tend (maybe for these two reasons) to download more apps and listen to more music than Android users.







An Android user (as shown in Nielsen info graph) has a higher average Data usage than iPhone but overall less app downloads or online gaming. The higher data usage could result of less app quality and therefore more unnecessary package transfers.

If Google is smart, which I believe, then they will first dump all Motorola devices which are not using Android or which are not smart phones. Then they should take the top two models, like the phantom 4 and build their OS perfect for these models hardware.

Google would not do good, if they would keep all current Motorola models which are currently 32.






Having their own Android phone and the right sales and service behind is all Google needs to strengthen their OS. Even if Android is an open OS it is sometimes better not to have too much diversity.

Smartphones are much more than hardware. Smart phones are service hubs. Search, music, social every thinkable Internet service is combined in a smart phone and the better the OS is calibrated to the hardware the better these services are working.

And the future and money is in services and not hardware or OS. Apple already understands this concept and therefore they are building an infrastructure which will give the user no other chance then using their services. I am still cursing the day I bought my first iMac computer, from this day on I was married to Apple and even if I would like to get divorced today, I could not easily because of iTunes, and how well all my devices are connected to each other.

I am wondering if the Motorola Xoom is a part of the mobility holding (according to the website, yes) then Google does get much more, not only the smart phones but as well tablets, software, baby phones, two way radios, navigation devices and 17.000 patents.






Google could be from one day to another a second Apple, selling phones, tablets and other Android devices and would have finally an online store.






The $12.5 billion is a good investment to move out of "search" and "advertising" and to go from virtual to products which people can touch and Ro bind them to Google only devices.

Google has over $39 billion in cash and the $12.5 billion would not hurt but could bring a lot.

Maybe we see soon Google stores next to Apple stores.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Please follow me on twitter @schlotz69

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

An iPad nightmare

Apple introduced last week the iPad 2. A few weeks ago my friend sold his iPad over craigslist knowing he will buy the new iPad 2. He got 75% of original price.
I did not think i want to sell and did not want to be 3 weeks without my iPad, but changed my mind after the keynote. One hour before the keynote gazelle.com did buy the iPad 64GB 3G for $590 which would mean the owner will still get $650 (original $829) for their big iPad 3G selling it private or over eBay.

Only hours after the announcement of the new iPad, the price at gazelle.com went down to $550 and now the price is $530 if your iPad is brand new, but don't expect to get the full price, they almost never pay it. Gazelle.com will even only pay $387 if the iPad has a few scratches on the back. In this case it is better to sell at eBay, because you will still get in average $530.







However i decided that I want to save the high eBay costs and posted it on craigslist.
$650 64GB 3G with 60 original DVDs.
Within minutes a potential buyer emailed me. However the email was suspicious. The buyer said he wants to send with his courier a certified personal check but i have to give him my full address. I decided not to, it looked like scam.



Even craigslist is warning for frauds like this.

A few hours later somebody asked my through craigslist if I send to Rochester NY. I replied of course but the mailing would be high because of the heavy DVDs. I got an answer it is fine and I shall send my paypal address. I did and I looked every half hour in my paypal account. Did not see anything but was happy to get a descent price for my iPad. 3 hours later i get an email from paypal that I have $750 funds in my account. I almost clicked on the email link to go to my paypal account but i saw that the address (i should send my iPad to) is in Nigeria. The person did send at the same time an email saying her husband got already an iPad for her and she does not want to disappoint me and therefore I should send the iPad to her sister.
Looking longer on the paypal email i recognized that the sender email address is paypal@service.com and not service@paypal.com. My mail program just showed the alias "Paypal Service" but right clicking on the email address gave the real email address. On my iPad it is better, it does not resolve the alias. Outlook makes it really easy for scams.




Email was convincing and lucky wise I look always directly in my account and don't click on emails links. But i guess many people don't do and then suddenly their account is compromised because they gave this person their password.
Really clever.
I did send the emails to spoof@paypal.com and should get within 24 hours an answer of their investigating.
I bought a lot of things at craigslist but never sold anything. And i will never sell anymore electronics or high end stuff through craigslist the scam is too high.
At the end you don't save anything. eBay is still the best way to go, high costs but at least all secure.

The only option for me is now Germany. Thanks to Apple. They release of the iPad is in Germany two weeks later.




I get right now for my iPad 64GB 3G around $550 with cover at eBay Germany. And the $ is so bad that I actually make almost 80% from my original price.




The buyers are willing to pay the shipping which is only $10 without insurance. If you insure the iPad then the buyer has to pay import taxes which does make the deal not attractive. I am a lucky person and a friend of mine is traveling next week to Germany and can take my iPad with him.

If you think you want to sell your iPad than hurry. Don't use craigslist or gazelle.com but try to sell it over eBay in countries where the dollar is weak and the iPad 2 does not come out soon. Just go to apple.com and look which country would work for you.

It s unbelievable that the iPad is already, after just one week, the most used sold electronic good. Gazelle.com did buy in average 1500 iPads a week. Since the keynote it is 2000 a day. eBay is since then selling more mobile pads than ever. It seems every pad owner (iPad, Xoom, Galaxy) wants to sell their pad to get the new iPad 2.

And Apple is smart, because of new form factor all accessories like covers or stands etc will not work anymore with the new iPad and we have to buy all new. At least a few hundred bucks extra to the iPad price.

I once switched to Apple because their products kept long a high resale price, Apple did change the form factor only every 3 years. The only thing which changed was processor and memory. I could easily use an Apple device three years and sell it to a good price. Since iPhone and iPad the time is over.
Apple releases every 12 months a new device with so much new that nobody wants to pay a high price for used. However the iPhone is still easier to sell to higher price, but because the people can save a lot of money buying a used one without contract and jailbreak it.
I know many who buy the iPhone and not have an expensive data plan. There it makes sense to buy to a higher price an used iPhone. A data plan is at least $720 for two years, and who really needs a data plan. Wifi is now almost everywhere.
The iPad does come without data plan, therefore nobody wants really to pay more only to get one with 3G. If so then they buy it new.

If you consider to buy the iPad 2. Think twice about the 3G model, it will lose more if you want to resell it after twelve months, as long the providers are charging still way to much for data. I am going to get the wifi only model (if i can sell my iPad) by knowing I will never be able to use it as a GPS device.

I might end up not to sell my iPad if i don't find a buyer to my conditions. Unfortunately we have already 2 iPads and I might need to wait till September when iPad 2.5 is coming out.

Let me know if you want to buy mine with original Apple cover and 60 DVDs for $650.



- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69

Apple a litte under attack

Netgear CEO LO says that Apple does a big mistake to have a close system for their iOS and Steve Jobs ego is too big to fit into a room.


Lo said that the only motivation Jobs had for his high-profile disagreement with Adobe over Flash last year was his ego. "What's the reason for him to trash Flash? There's no reason other than ego," Lo told the newspaper.
Lo predicted problems for Apple with iOS and the iPhone if it continued to follow what he considers to be a 'closed' strategy.

"Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform. Ultimately a closed system just can't go that far. If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it's pretty difficult as I see it," Lo said.
But to be honest it sounds for me like jealousy. Would not every company prefer to have a closed system, even Netgear would, they are just not able to do so.

Even Google would prefer it but the only way to keep up with iOS is to offer an open system free of charge for hardware makers.

Then a lot of companies are complaining that Apple is getting more strict with their in apps purchases. They declined the latest Sony app (Sony reader) because Apple would not make money on the in app purchase.

Is it a good decision? What happens with Kindle and Nook apps?

First of all Kindle and Nook won't go away. The biggest difference is that you can't buy books within the app. You either buy it through a kindle/nook or you need to go to the websites to buy the books. The two readers are on the Apple devices just as you can think of "Readers". Sony tried to do another approach to allow in app purchase.

But of course for a consumer it is not great to hear that the consumer has to leave the app to buy a book. But so is it. IF somebody wants to buy books from Sony, then buy a Sony reader. I am using iBooks, Kindle and Nook app on my ipad and i barley buy anything from Amazon or B&N. Most of the books are available as well in iBooks. Only a few I had to buy somewhere else, and then i did not mind to navigate to Amazon website to buy the book and then sync it with my iPad.

I can understand Apple's decision. They want to go more into the platform business than just hardware/software, but as a consumer i might not like it too much.

But i don't have any alternative right now to switch. No other devices works so well with my iTunes, or can sync so perfect with my Apple. Every other device i tested or saw yet takes either forever to set up because i have too many choices, have too many bugs and or don't perform so smooth or the battery life is much shorter. They are all in some ways better than the iphone or the iPad but in other ways just not as good (BTW the Galaxi Tab got much less sold than they said, Samsung counted sold items to resellers and not to consumers).

Overall the mix of hardware, software, usability, battery life and amount of available apps is not yet given with any other device on the market and this will still taker 12 months, and till then Apple will have upgrades of their current devices.

This week, Motorola started their Super Bowl chimerical for XOOM which is an awesome commercial, clearly against Apple and their 1984 commercial. The commercial is good, it shows that the user should have an alternative to Apple.



A lot of researchers are predicting that Apple will have in 2013 only 40% of the tablet market, and so what?

Let us face. Even if Apple has only a market share of 40% and maybe Android 50% then Apple has still 40% and 30 other tablet manufactures are sharing 60%, this means Apple is still market leader. If we compare by OS then Goolge is the market leader as they will be soon for smart phones (they surpassed already Symbian), but Google does not make any money on the OS or they devices using Android. Google does only make direct money on apps if even.

On the other hand, Apple is selling more smart phones than any other company. They make on each phone $100 (iPhone costs $194 to produce) and 30% of all sold apps through the app store plus 30% from iAds. So if Apple does not make money on free apps it still makes money on the ads.

Google makes money on ads on their Android devices as well, and surely will sell more ads than Apple because of bigger market penetration and bigger ad network, but statistics are already showing that iAds have better click rate than ad mobs ads.

Bottom line is that Apple does not need to be the sole tablet manufacture or the biggest OS distributor to make more money than Google or even Microsoft (Microsoft had higher net profit than Apple last quarter, but less revenue).

Apple has an unique situation. They sell hardware and software combined. This makes Apple so successful and rich because it is closed and because only Apple produced Hardware is allowed to have their OS.

I am sick to hear comparison between Google, Apple and Microsoft. They are three different type of companies. Google, wants or is only able, to make money through advertisement, and therefore is offering a lot of products free. Google docs is great and it is free, but you cant compare with Microsoft. MS has Office and it costs money and guess what it makes money. But MS does much more than Office. They have a lot of services and software they make money with, like SharePoint, Dynamics products and their Cloud Azure. Granted Google has similar products but free or less expensive, however Google has a big disadvantage with service, actually Google has the worst customer support you can imagine. Just try to have help with your Google AdWords account, it is not easy to get somebody on the phone. Instead they have these forums where everybody can post answers and most of the time these answers are not good enough.

In the other hand Microsoft has a very good service and support in place and makes money out of it, who guessed.

Google is not in Apple business neither. Apple builds hardware, sells software, Google doesn't.

There will be for a long time Google, Microsoft and Apple but don't compare them as you can't compare Apples with strawberries. They are both fruits but just different.

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Is it a phone or a netbook?

Motorola once the the dominator with phones like the Razr lost the cool factor market lead against the iPhone and companies like HTC with Androids.

But Motorola is back. According to Motorola they have now the most powerful phone - the Atrix!!!

What is so special with the Atrix?
It is the first phone with a dual processor 2x1 gigahertz) which is twice then the current phones on the market have (1 single gigahertz processor).



But more impressive then the dual processor is the ability to dock the Atrix into a 11.6 inch screen with keyboard and a fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone (number code works as well in case your finger gets cut off)




According to some rumors the screen docking will be sold at Best Buy and not ATT (ATT will sell the Atrix phone). The prize will be at $150 for the 11.6 inch docking screen. The Atrix becomes a netbook that is just 14 millimeters thick when plugged into screen and keyboard — about the same as an iPhone with a bumper. The keyboard has its own power source and is rated at up to eight hours use. The netbook has USB slots so you can use an external drive.

Is this not what we all wanted? A phone we use to go to work or to make calls. But when we are in the office we dock it into a screen and use it as a notebook.

The idea is great but the Atrix is still a little away from this.

1. It s running on Android 2.2 and there are not many enterprise application available. But at least you can use google documents for Word and Excel.
2. When the phone is docked, the 11.6 inch screen only support right now chrome browser in full screen mode. All other applications are shown in a small side box on the screen which is the same size as the phone screen.

But after all it is the right direction where phones will go.
The Atrix is impressive in speed, and quality.
Some facts:
16GB internal memory and up to 32GB micro SD card makes it in total 48GB
5 Mega Pixel back camera and a VGA front facing Camera
960x540 screen resolution slightly lower than the iPhone 960x640 but it is not as clear and bright like the iPhone.
The Atrix will be on ATT 4G network
1 Gigabyte RAM which is more than other smart phones.
Basically the Atrix is similar like a netbook in terms of specs 18 months ago but much smaller.
Motorola is claiming that the phone will only use both processors when needed.

It is exciting to see the Atrix in action and it is pointing in the correct direction but it is still not a notebook replacement. We will see what Apple will show with their next iPhone release after iPhone 5.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.
Please follow my twitter account @schlotz69

Location:Brooksville