Another patent expert weighed in on Google’s proposed $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition on Friday, and once again the deal is not seen as having the potential to stave off the flood of lawsuits targeting Android partners. In an interview with Finnish-language business magazine Talouselama published on Friday, Nokia’s chief of patent licensing Paul Melin went on record in stating that the potential deal will do precious little to help Google defend its mobile operating system against the likes of Apple and Microsoft. ”There are tens of patent lawsuits ongoing against Android. As we have understood, acquiring Motorola won’t solve one of them,” Melin told the magazine. Earlier this week, patent expert David Martin of patent consulting firm M-Cam called the deal an immense mistake. “What they bought is crap, because at the end of the day Motorola sold off its good assets,” Martin said in an interview.
Apple’s iPhone and iPad competitors could benefit with Steve Jobs out as CEO of Apple. “It’s going to give competitors a bit more of a lease of life to go out and compete harder,” Nomura International Plc. technology analyst Richard Windsor told Bloomberg, which noted that Sony and Nokia’s stock prices jumped after Jobs’ announcement. “It’s been thought about, talked about endlessly for the past several years that Tim Cook would probably take over so while you get an initial knee-jerk reaction on the downside, we would probably expect that not to last very long.” Apple will also need to maintain the momentum and market lead that Steve Jobs created as CEO. “If the new management team doesn’t sustain the level of innovation that Steve Jobs spearheaded, it’s going to be an opportunity for the competition in the long term,” Korea Investment Management Co. fund manager Lee Young Seog said. “Still, because of Tim Cook’s competence and the system at Apple, the competitive landscape isn’t likely to change anytime soon.” Steve Jobs announced his resignation from his CEO post on Wednesday and he will be replaced by Tim Cook, who has effectively been running the company while Jobs has been on leave. “Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it,” Jobs said in his resignation letter on Wednesday.
In two years, we’ll mark the thirtieth anniversary of the first commercially available cellphone — built by Motorola, incidentally. Given this week’s big news from Google, and other big events that we can only presume are yet to come, those two years may also prove to be some of the most interesting yet for the mobile industry.
One of the more telling things about Google’s acquisition announcement on Monday was the response from Motorola’s competitors (and Google’s partners). Immediately following the news, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC and LG all came out to praise Google’s commitment to “defending Android,” which presumably also means that they remain committed to using Android. What’s more, as Google itself has made explicitly clear recently, it’s not just defending Android as any company would defend its own product, but defending it against what it’s described as “hostile” and “organized” threat from Apple and Microsoft (and, to a lesser extent, Oracle). Continue reading Editorial: Google, Microsoft and the incredible shifting mobile landscape→
Android continued on its warpath this past quarter, once again showing gains as it retained its position as top smartphone platform in the United States. Nielsen on Thursday issued its second-quarter smartphone market share data for the U.S., and Android finds itself atop the list again with 39% of the market. IOS remains in the No. 2 spot with 28% and RIM slid to 20% in the second quarter. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined to take 9% of the market, while webOS and Palm OS combined to account for just 2% of the market. Nokia’s Symbian OS also held a 2% share in the June quarter. On the list of top vendors last quarter, Apple held its lead by a wide margin with 28% of the total U.S. market. HTC devices accounted for 14% of Android market and 6% of the Windows Phone/Windows Mobile market, making it the nation’s top vendor in both categories and No. 2 overall. Samsung owned 8% of the Android market and 2% of the Windows Phone/Windows Mobile market in the U.S. last quarter, while Motorola topped Samsung’s Android share with 11% to slide into the No. 2 spot among Android device manufacturers.
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