Google Spends $12.5 Billion To Buy Motorola Mobility... And Its Patents

from the keep-an-eye-on-the-patents dept

Lots of talk today about Google's surprise decision to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The deal is leaving some people scratching their heads, because it seems like a business that Google had always stayed out of, preferring to provide the tools (Android) for others to go and do things. But I'm betting a big part of this deal is because of Motorola's patents. You have to think that a big chunk of mobile device and mobile OS-related patents are likely included in the deal, and it gives Google something else to use in response to the Nortel patents going elsewhere. Of course, it may cause some other problems, as Motorola Mobility competitors, who also work with Google, start wondering if they should keep using Google as a partner. It also makes you wonder what Google will really do with Motorola Mobility. It would be nice to see a Google-like approach from the hardware side, but I just don't see that as likely. My guess is that the hardware side will fizzle, but Google will still be happy it has the patents.

Filed Under: android, mobile, patents
Companies: google, motorola

Microsoft To US Gov't: Hey, Only We Should Be Able To Use Patents To Shakedown Other Companies!

from the ain't-that-always-the-way dept

When former telecom giant Nortel was reduced to just a pile of questionable patents, we knew there would be a fight over who got them. Google made a lot of news a couple months back, by placing a $900 million stalking horse bid on those patents. The company has made it pretty clear that it's mainly looking to buy those patents to keep them out of the hands of someone else who might shake down innovation in the mobile ecosystem. Obviously, Google would prefer that the Android ecosystem not be slowed down by patent trolling.

However, there is one company that's quite worried about all of this: Microsoft. Even though it's not clear who will win the bid for Nortel's patents (and many expect Google to be outbid), Microsoft has officially objected to Google's attempt to buy the patents, saying that it has a perpetual royalty-free license to those patents, and under the terms of the sale, any buyer could end that deal.

And here's why Microsoft is a steaming pile of hypocrisy on this subject: Microsoft has ramped up its own anti-Android patent trolling efforts, lately. It's been demanding licensing fees and/or suing all sorts of companies who use Android. In fact, some reports suggest that thanks to all this effort, Microsoft makes significantly more money from Android phones than from its own mobile platforms. Clearly, shaking down others with patents is good money.

And Microsoft doesn't think it's fair that someone else could do the same thing to it:

For Microsoft to complain is pretty rich, of course. Here it is, using patents to attack companies employing Android in an attempt to slow down the uptake of that rival to its own Windows Phone smartphone system. That's a clear abuse of the patent system to dissuade companies from signing up with a competitor (which, interestingly, it doesn't attack directly), rather than to protect real innovation (an aim that was thrown out of the patent system long ago.)

After all, those deeply innovative ideas that Microsoft is claiming that companies are infringing include “natural ways of interacting with devices by tabbing through various screens to find the information they need, surfing the Web more quickly, and interacting with documents and e-books”. Tabbed screens - yeah, right.

And yet when there is the prospect that Google might be able to threaten in exactly the same way, by pulling existing licences - not, admittedly, a very nice thing to do, but all's fair etc. etc. - Microsoft suddenly wants the government to intervene to protect it from this bullying.

I mean, let's be consistent here: if you want to abuse the patent system, expect to be on the receiving end of similar abuse. On the other hand, rather more laudably, why not stop abusing, in which case you can take the moral high ground when others start abusing the system to attack you?

Filed Under: mobile, patents, telecom
Companies: google, microsoft, nortel

Al Franken Grandstands Over Meaningless Privacy Policies

from the come-on-al dept

We were just discussing the whole misguided focus on privacy policies. For years, now, there's been this false and silly belief that, if we just required that websites have "privacy policies," it would somehow lead to more privacy. But it's a completely false sense of security. No one reads privacy policies. They're meaningless. And you can put anything in one -- including claiming to freely give up anyone's data to anyone who asks. And yet... the obsession continues. My original post on the subject was due to a silly study about how many mobile apps don't have privacy policies. In true grandstanding fashion, it appears Senator Al Franken has picked up on that report, and is saying that Apple and Google should require privacy policies.

I'm sure he means well, and I'm sure he thinks this is about protecting people's privacy. But it's not. What good does a privacy policy do in this situation? It presents a bunch of policies that no one will read, no one will pay attention to, which the company can change at any time, and which can be written so broadly as to be the opposite of actually protecting anyone's privacy. And yet, if Google and Apple require such things, Franken and others will think they're protecting people's privacy, when they're not. Stop worrying about privacy policies, and start focusing on stuff that actually matters.

Filed Under: al franken, mobile, privacy, privacy policies

T-Mobile UK Decides Mobile Broadband Shouldn't Actually Be Used For Mobile Broadband

from the save-that-for-home dept

If you have T-Mobile in the UK you may be disappointed to know that the company has suddenly decided that you should be perfectly happy to use little more than just 500 MB per month -- a paltry amount. It's not quite a cap at 500 MB -- you'll still be able to do some basic surfing, but apparently, once you've used up your 500 MB, you'll no longer be able to do anything beyond browsing static websites or checking email. No streaming, downloading, gaming, etc. Many users previously had caps that were around 3GB, so this is a pretty big drop. Apparently, T-Mobile has decided it gets to tell you what you can and cannot use the account for:

"Browsing means looking at websites and checking email, but not watching videos, downloading files or playing games. We've got a fair use policy but ours means that you'll always be able to browse the internet, it's only when you go over the fair use amount that you won't be able to download, stream and watch video clips."

Basically, this is T-Mobile UK announcing to the world that it doesn't have the bandwidth to actually give people what they want, and it hasn't invested in the necessary upgrades to offer a reasonable service. Or, a simpler way of explaining it, is that this is T-Mobile UK telling users in the UK who actually want to use mobile broadband to find another provider.

Filed Under: broadband, caps, mobile, uk
Companies: t-mobile

Qualcomm Kills Mobile Broadcast TV Offering After So Much Money Wasted

from the could-have-saved-some-of-that... dept

Nearly five years ago, we predicted that Qualcomm was wasting a ton of money with its MediaFlo effort. The company had bought up a bunch of spectrum to create a special broadcast TV offering for mobile phones. It didn't take a genius to predict why that wouldn't make much sense. First of all, using spectrum for straight broadcast video ignores that content is increasingly multi-directional, interactive and on-demand. In an age where more and more people were using their DVRs to time shift, their iPods to place shift and mobile phones to communicate on the go, the idea of watching broadcast television on your mobile phone just seemed to be a solution stuck in a prediction from decades ago, rather than one that actually looked at what the technology allowed.

I have to admit that after writing a few negative pieces on MediaFlo, I did get a nasty email from someone at Qualcomm, who insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about, and the demand for such a broadcast TV system, just for mobile devices, was "off the charts." Apparently, it was off the charts in the wrong direction. After spending so much money, Qualcomm recently announced that it's shutting down the effort (which is now called Flo TV). Next time, Qualcomm, if you're looking to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, you can just give it to me, and I'll save you the trouble...

Filed Under: broadcast tv, flo, mobile
Companies: qualcomm

Why iPhone Broadband Caps Aren't Actually A 'Good Deal'

from the trends,-people,-trends dept

There was a lot of attention paid recently to a study from Nielsen concerning how much data smartphone users consume. One of the things that some pulled from this report was the idea that AT&T's new iPhone usage caps were somehow a "good deal" for consumers, since many appeared to use less than AT&T's first tier cap. That's because of the following statement from Nielsen, which certainly implies that:

Usage-based pricing may be more fair. The top 6 percent of smart phone users are consuming half of all data. The vast majority of customers, 99 percent according to the 60,000 phone bills that Nielsen collects and analyzes every month as part of their Customer Value Metrics product, are better off with a pricing scheme like AT&T's new data pricing model than under flat-rate pricing where they are paying for much more than they ever use.

Of course, the reality is a bit more complicated. Thankfully, Broadband Reports explains why these claims ignore important trends and other factors:

While many people are applauding AT&T's new data pricing plans as money savers for light users today -- they're not looking at tomorrow's big picture. One, Nielsen ignores the fact that carriers are now making data plans mandatory for smartphone users who previously only used Wi-Fi. That's not "more fair," nor does it save money. Nielsen takes the stance that light users somehow need to be "educated" into consuming more data -- yet many of those users simply prefer to use their device's Wi-Fi functionality alone. That's no longer possible.

Two, the average user already consumes 298MB of data -- while AT&T's base cap is 200 MB. That cap's set just low enough to push today's average user to the higher, $25 a month tier (plus overages, ETFs, an endless assortment of fees). That average is going to quickly skyrocket and the heavy user of today will become the average user of tomorrow -- yet instead of having the option of a simple, unlimited data tier at a fair price -- they'll face heavy and often confusing overages just as smartphones begin seeing interesting video service integration (Netflix, Hulu). That's not about saving money, it's about making money.

Again, incumbent wireless companies are not in the business of making less money, and this new media meme that a shift to low caps and high overages is about saving consumers money, or fairness, or helping minorities -- is simply absurd. If telecom analysts want to analyze -- they should be noting that carriers and investors see the death of SMS and voice minutes heading their direction -- and are changing pricing models to compensate and cash in on an explosion in wireless video (or streaming wireless audio) use. But the suggestion that this shift is driven by altruism is bizarre and disingenuous.

There's also the fact that, with the new plans, if you want to use tethering, it'll run you an extra $20/month -- not to mention that tethering will increase data usage. It also ignores the mental transaction costs when you know you have a cap and potential overages that discourages usage, just as more apps are coming online to encourage usage. The really damning part, of course, is just the basic trend that data usage is increasing and that's not going to slow down any time soon. AT&T smartly set its caps so that it could get analysts to make these kinds of claims, ignoring that a couple years from the average data will be much higher and more and more people will be pushed to higher, significantly more expensive options.

What's kind of amazing here is how no one seems to look back at the consumer internet access costs for comparison. In the early days, when many people had AOL, there were caps and metered billing. And some people used it, certainly, but it was nothing compared to what happened when AOL finally dropped its caps and suddenly people could really embrace and use the internet without worrying about hitting their usage cap. Unlimited internet access is what helped drive internet usage, making it such a powerful and useful platform. Mobile operators seem to want to go in the other direction and are working hard to try to limit how useful many people find their phones, due to limiting data plans. That doesn't seem all that compelling or "fair."

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, growth, mobile, trends