Google admits I was right, buys Motorola

Ok, so maybe a little hyperbole in the headline, but Google may have admitted that Apple, at least, had it right.  A lot has been said about the Motorola purchase and it's implications for the bubbling patent wars but could this purchase represent more than that?

My last post in this area was about how Apple beat Oracle and Google, referring to their control over the hardware and the software in their business.  It now appears that Google agrees and decided to do something about the situation by purchasing Motorola.

While some articles have pointed out that Google is both alienating it’s friends, and bolstering it’s enemies, others have pointed out that this gives Google the control it needs to make Android a success.  Hopefully this will give them a hardware platform that can keep up with releases of the software and provide a consistent less bug-prone environment for Android to shine in.  If this alienates some previously Android friendly companies such as Samsung and Sony, so be it, it may just help them keep up with Apple.

Of course the mobile platform is just one industry that Google will now have a hardware presence in.  Motorola does produce a great many cable boxes which means Google TV may have found a new platform to shine on as well.  While I love my Tivo, I am curious to see what Google may do in this arena in the future.

I should mention, in regards to my last article, that though Sun did provide the hardware platform and the software for Java to grow, they never had any kind of pull in the desktop arena, though they did try.  Sun and Java did become a very popular combination for supporting web applications.  Oracle has also pointed out that one of their reasons behind the Sun purchase was to provide a hardware platform to support their database.  The Exadata hardware/software combination is a great example of this ability Oracle now has to control the entire environment.

The trends certainly seem to indicate that while open specifications and standards are great in some areas, it is easier to move forward when both the hardware and software can work together closely.