Google to acquire Motorola Mobility

Motorola gambled big on Google's Android, making it their only operating system. Now it looks like Google is gambling big on Android.

PCMagazine reports that Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in order to "supercharge" its Android mobile operating system and build up its patent portfolio.

This may cause some worry among other Android smartphone manufacturers, but Google assures that it remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices.

In my opinion it actually should assure Android partners that Google will actively defend Android from software patent attacks from Apple and Microsoft.

With Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, it acquires the latter's patent portfolio. Presumably, Motorola Mobility software patents wont be used against other Android hardware manufacturers.