Google’s $12.5B deal for Motorola Mobility shakes up the mobile market

Google's latest move could help the company's standing in the tablet market.

School technology buyers will be watching to see how Google’s $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola’s mobile technology unit affects the market for mobile devices.

If approved by federal regulators, the deal announced Aug. 15 gives Google control over a key manufacturer of devices that run on its open-source Android operating system.

But the big prize isn’t Motorola’s lineup of cell phones and computer tablets, analysts say: It’s Motorola’s more than 17,000 patents—a crucial weapon in an intellectual arms race with Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle to gain more control over the increasingly lucrative mobile device market.…Read More