Google Buys Motorola for $12.5 Billion – What It Means for Google+

In a move that surprised many stock analysts, Google has announced that it will purchase Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc for $12.5 billion.  The company, which has been losing money as of late, will be acquired by the internet search giant for a premium of over 60% of Friday’s closing price.
The acquisition was explained by CEO, Larry Page in the passage below:
This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.
The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences. I am confident that these great experiences will create huge value for shareholders.
Clearly Motorola will give Google what it needs to further the growth of the Android platform, as well as give them the much needed patents to fight off any future litigation.  Having said this, the acquisition of a mobile phone manufacturing could also help speed up the growth of almost any of their internet services, including Google+.
Google+ is off to an amazing start, and would likely grow quite rapidly on it’s own.  Google could also now leverage their control over one of the larger mobile phone manufacturers, to build phones around the new social network, Google+.  We heard all the talk about Facebook possibly making a phone, well, Google just opened the door for possibly several Google+ phones, as well as tablets in the near future.  If they can manufacture a line of smartphones and tablets which have Google+, Google+ Games, Hangouts, and any other Google+ feature built in, they will certainly have further leverage in their battle with Facebook.
It will be interesting to see how this purchase changes things for consumers as well as developers in the coming year or two.
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