Google's Motorola Adventure: Stinging Defeat, Or Semi-Victory? 139
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google had previously sold Motorola's Home division for $2.4 billion. Combine that with yesterday's $2.91 billion sale of Motorola's remaining assets, subtract the $12.5 billion acquisition price for the company back in 2011, and Google's little smartphone adventure cost it roughly $7.1 billion even before you start throwing in expenses related to actual production, marketing, and personnel. That's a hefty chunk of change, but some analysts think the deal was ultimately a good one because it allowed Google to pick up patents, engineering talent, and insight into the mobile-device marketplace. It's debatable, however, whether those patents ultimately helped Android in the still-raging smartphone wars, and Google was slow to promote Motorola smartphones out of fear of irritating other Android manufacturers. At least Google can console itself with the thought that so many of its other acquisitions—including YouTube and DoubleClick—resulted in massive profits; but you can't hit a home run every time you step up to bat."
Re:The numbers (Score:5, Informative)
Google said in a filing that they valued the patents at $5.5 billion: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20... [nytimes.com]
Re:The numbers (Score:2, Informative)
The cash and deferred tax assets stay with Motorola. Google does not magically get these. They are also no longer this large.
Re:Not the whole story (Score:5, Informative)
At least 5200.
About 4000 [cnet.com] in August 2012 and another 1200 [cnet.com] in March 2013.
Re:lost of course in the story are the Employees (Score:4, Informative)