Google has built a ‘firewall’ between Android and Motorola

Since before Google’s deal to buy out Motorola was approved by both the US and EU, they had stated that each company would remain completely separate from on another. And had stressed that Motorola wouldn’t be ‘favored’ by Google in any way. Recently here at MWC, Google’s Andy Rubin had a few words to say on the subject, as many people have been asking why Motorola’s CEO Sanjay Jha would be replaced by Google employee Dennis Woodside.

To put it bluntly, he said “I don’t even know anything about their products, I haven’t seen anything”. And as for any favoritism between manufacturers, Rubin says there will be none. Google has “literally built a firewall” between the two companies. However, if the next Nexus smartphone ended up in Motorola’s factories, I wouldn’t be surprised.

And we should restate why Google purchased Motorola to begin with; Motorola had over 17K patents and 7.5K pending patents when the deal first commenced, and Google thought it was in their best interest to own these patents. And $12.5 billion dollars later, here we are. It wouldn’t be too disappointing to see this ‘firewall’ fall, and Google start using Motorola to promote and displese Android products the way they want. Imagine a world where each phone is treated like a Nexus device, receiving timely updates and developmental support; this is indeed farfetched, but Google manages their business well. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[via TheVerge]