Answering to various questions related to
Google’s recent new product announcements,
John Lagerling, Google’s director of business development for Android,
revealed during an interview with The New York Times details about
potential Motorola Nexus plans. Just don’t get too excited!
The executive talked mainly about
Google’s new Nexus devices that were announced on Monday, via press releases instead of an actual media event that was canceled
because of Hurricane Sandy, praising some of their features. Another important highlight for Lagerling is the
Nexus 4’s entry price of $299 (that’s the full retail price for the 8GB Google Nexus 4), a price that he personally negotiated.
But here’s the bit that got our attention:
Q. Where does Motorola stand in all this? You haven’t used them yet for the Nexus program.
A.
They stand where Sharp would stand, or Sony would stand or Huawei would
stand. From my perspective as a partnership director, they are another
partner. We are really walled between the Motorola team and the Android
team. They would bid on doing a Nexus device just like any other
company.
Q. So how does Google take advantage of the Motorola acquisition?
A.
The way I understand it is, it’s mostly about the patents, the way you
can sort of disarm this huge attack against Android. We talked about
prices. There are players in the industry who were unhappy about more
competitive pricing for the consumers. They want to keep the prices
high, they want to force the price to be so high that operators have to
subsidize the devices very highly. That’s not only the Cupertino guys
but also for the guys up in Seattle. They want higher margins, they want
to charge more for software.
We simply believe there’s a
better way of doing it without extracting that much payment from end
users, because there are other ways to drive revenues. Patents were used
as a weapon to try to stop that evolution and scare people away from
lower-cost alternatives. And I think with the Motorola acquisition we’ve
shown we’re able to put skin in the game and push back.
In case you forgot, Google’s Motorola subsidiary that cost the company $12.5 billion
is still bleeding money quarter after quarter.
Users would have expected Google to at least launch one Nexus-branded
device made by Motorola this year, or at least have the devices that
were announced after the acquisition was finalized to run Google’s most
recent Android OS version.
Neither of these things happened. And
from the looks of it, a Motorola Nexus device is not yet a priority, as
it was all about those patents.
During Google’s Q3 quarterly
earnings report, company officials revealed that a Motorola Android
device made to accommodate Google’s Android needs – therefore a Nexus
device –
may only be made at some point next year.
As for timely Jelly Bean updates, Google did introduce
a cashback program
for Motorola device owners that will not get a Jelly Bean upgrade for
their smartphones and/or tablets. But it failed to offer actual timely
updates for existing and new handsets.
Sure, Google did say that
it won’t favor Motorola in any way now that it owns the communications
device maker. And Google repeated these statements quite a few times, to
make it clear for its other Android partners that it won’t screw them
over by offering cheaper Motorola-made Android device to consumers that
would run the latest Android versions ahead of the competition.
On
that note, one could argue that Google managed to screw over most
Android top device makers by releasing budget-friendly devices such as
the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 4, but that’s a topic for another rainy day.
Getting
back to Lagerling’s statements on the Motorola purchase, it appears
that it’s very clear for the exec – and probably others like him that
work for the company – that the move was important only for the current
mobile patent wars. Or at least that’s what’s he’s being told.
And
if you’d think that buying a trove of patents for a lot of money would
help you in courts against Apple and Microsoft, well then guess again!
Not only isn’t Google able to obtain any favorable rulings at this time,
but the FTC seems more determined to investigate the way some of these patents are used against rivals in courts.
So
how about designing some Motorola Nexus devices and launching them
soon, you know, before Sharp or Sony will unveil their Nexuses?
