Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5B

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and LIBERTYVILLE, IL – Google Inc. is buying Motorola Mobility Holdings for US$12.5 billion in cash.The software and search engine giant said Monday that the deal, (which also includes Motorola’s cable set top box and broadband divisions, portions that have not been widely considered as analysts deconstruct the deal), will enable Google to “supercharge” the Android ecosystem and boost competition in mobile computing.It will also give Google control of some 17,000 patents Motorola owns, as well as 7,000 more patent applications in the pipeline. With wireless operating system companies suing each other back and forth for patent...