US markets bounced on the news on Monday 15th August 2011 that Google is to acquire Motorola Mobility. Larry Page, CEO of Google, outlined how the complete adoption of Google’s Android software across the entire Motorola range in 2008 had made the two companies a natural fit. Google defended the acquisition as a positive note for competition in the US:
“We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”
The deal was formed as a definitive agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday 12th August 2011. Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, underlined the two companies’ continued commitment to keeping Android open source and supporting developers.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval from the US and European Union and is expected to close in late 2011 or early 2012.