Sanjay Jha: He is one of the best CEOs I’ve met. A great addition to Google if he stays.
Patents: I believe Google when they say that patents are the reason they got into this. They see themselves in a legal war. But why buy patents when they could buy the whole company:
Goog Strategy: This deal is not an endorsement of the Steve Jobs doctrine that the best way to make software is to control the hardware that runs it.
I think Google believes that, but only really for the hardware that runs its data centers. Google is to its core a cloud computing company. It sees hardware as little more than devices to run browsers of various sorts, which is a way to describe Android.
Cellphones: This doesn’t really change the dynamic in the market. It’s hard to see how much different Motorola’s Android lineup will be because of the deal. Moto already offers phones with the Google name and deep cooperation with Goog engineers. It’s not like Google’s Nexus lineup has been much of a hit.
Television: There is much more potential for impact in the living room. Moto is a very large cable box maker. Google TV has not caught on yet, and this could be the wedge to get it (a browser for the TV with a big search button) in millions of living rooms.
Future: I’ll bet that Goog spins off the manufacturing business within the decade. It’s just not what they do, and it’s not what they need in the long run.
