According to a securities filing, Google’s initial unsolicited bid for Motorola was actually closer to $9 billion – a solid $3 billion less than the final $12 billion figure. The filing says Google’s first offer sat at $30/share on August 1, and after a bit of back-and-forth, Motorola got them up to $40/share on August 9. Motorola didn’t open up bidding publicly, because they figured they wouldn’t be getting any better offers, and if they failed to sell, it would look particularly bad.
Apparently Motorola’s main worry was fending off the deluge of intellectual property lawsuits that would result from the acquisition, which is fair enough considering Google’s primary interest was in patents. While that might mean Android has something to defend itself with, it might mean that Motorola can’t continue its ongoing litigation with Apple, and potentially that Google won’t be able to launch any legal attacks against iOS patents through Motorola.
The acquisition is still a contentious one; there’s a lot of worry that Google will estrange its many manufacturing partners by playing favourites when it comes to Android. That said, it’s not surprising that HTC is shopping around for a new OS, and Samsung is still investing in their smartphone operating system, Bada. Of course, it may be necessary to step on a few toes and shell out an extra $3 bil if Google wants to keep companies from nailing manufacturing partners with patent licensing fees, as Microsoft is apparently doing with HTC.
[via WSJ]