“We see a number of major vendors very seriously considering Windows Mobile as a core platform and therefore we are following their lead and examining it as well to complement our work in Android to date,” said Frank Meehan, chief executive officer (CEO) of INQ, the Hutchison Whampoa company that came up with a Skype phone and a Facebook phone. Meehan is worried about the latest Android development. Hutchison owns and operates 3G networks across the world under the brand name, “3.” And when he says Windows Mobile, he does mean Windows Phone 7 operating system.

INQ started to work on an Android-based device in 2009 and since then has been selling Android-based smartphones. “From a group perspective at Hutchison Whampoa, we have worked hard at bringing Android to consumers across our operations,” he said. “However this year there has been a dramatic increase in the way companies are looking to maximize the potential revenues of IPR (intellectual property) holdings, and the trend for many companies is now to concentrate on litigation rather than innovation.”

Meehan, a long time veteran of the mobile business, believes that ecosystem players need to take a deep breath and learn from GSM where major companies involved with development of that standard got together and came up with a way to help grow the mobile ecosystem. Meehan has a point and I do believe that eventually the mobile OS players will have to adopt a similar approach or else we are going to be stuck in a patent related mess for a long time.

“The advantages with Windows Mobile is that the legal issues and resulting costs seem to be much less,” Meehan said. He thinks the quick growth of Android — almost 600,000 activations a day — has made it a big target. But if Windows Phone 7 grows as quickly, then who knows if that will be hit by similar legal troubles, Meehan argued.

Meehan took a swing at rival Motorola and added, “It is telling that the Motorola Board decided that they could get more value out of 15-20 year old patents rather than use their huge R&D to create new exciting technologies over the next 10 years which is what Motorola used to do very well.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• What the Google-Motorola deal means for Android, Microsoft and the mobile industry
• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• The big theme of MWC: How to live in a connected world

In the age of blogs, it is the one with the ability to create instant amplification of the original news that is the chosen outlet. No surprise that you see news break on sites like  Politico more often. And why gadget news first shows up on Engadget.

Today, news jumps from blogs to television to traditional news outlets with the same regularity as it does in the opposite direction. This is part of the industry upheaval due to democratization of distribution. This subtle but harsh reality might have helped Google decide to go straight to its own blog with the Motorola news. It seems Larry Page decided not to play favorites with any media outlet and instead posted the news on the Google blog.

I give Page full kudos for doing this — I think this is the best business practice and all companies should follow it. I remember visiting Google’s offices and meeting with the communications team and making them understand that for a company that owns Blogger and YouTube, they needed to start using those tools and be the change they wanted to see. And nothing comes bigger!

On the flip side, Google also gets a lot of incoming links, which is important for the official news of the deal to show up when someone searches on Google for “Google Buys Motorola.” Ironically, right now if I conduct that search, Larry Page’s blog post is below a post on Mashable. The fact that the original comes after what is essentially a regurgitated blog post is symptomatic of the slow degradation of Google Search — which at times feels much like driving over the always-under-construction streets of San Francisco.

What’s the scoop?

But back to the idea of scoops and Salmon’s assertion. I think there is an element of truth to it. What is also important for us to remember is that the idea of a scoop today is much different from the idea of a scoop ten years ago. Today, the news — and scoops — are more a process than one big news release. The process means someone first breaks what is essentially a tiny component of the story, and pretty quickly the whole picture becomes clear, as other reporters and media outlets join in. Now you must be wondering – isn’t that how things are always done? Yes, but earlier there were fewer outlets and the metabolism of news was slower.

Today, this happens in almost real-time, thanks to the growing presence of online publications and a sharp increase in independent voices. I would say that the process of breaking news is becoming more democratic than ever before, but it is also a lot more difficult.

I for one, welcome the change. As a young reporter trying to make a go of it, I was always competing with large giants like the Wall Street Journal who were the preferred choice of news leakers. The same went for other big publications. On the other hand, I had to earn my scoops the old-fashioned way: by building contacts, establishing relationships and knowing my beat as best as humanly possible — and then working the beat 24-7. So when I did score a scoop — and I did land quite a few for Forbes.com — it was a delicious feeling.

Pre-announcing Sun’s launch of its Corona (net-PC) was one of those stories that drove the Sun PR machine into a tizzy. Or National Semiconductor’s decision to sell off Cyrix. There were a few others along the way as well, such as Yahoo buying Flickr and Six Apart buying Live Journal. More recently I have had a few including Microsoft-Skype and Microsoft’s involvement in the Google and Motorola deal.

But as the size of the blogosphere grows, chasing the scoop becomes much more harder. There are just too many good reporters out there, and they have ability to find and post the first hint of a scoop at a lightening speed. Getting the scoop is only going to get harder, and in the end, it will kill the traditional scoop.

The amplification effect, however, has its downsides. One mistake in reporting, and it reverberates around the web and onto the traditional non-Internet media outlets. And if the news involves publicly traded companies, it can have a major impact on the stock prices or even the direction of the economy. That’s the reality of media today.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Startup growth and the new recruiting ecosystem
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• Beyond social: the crowd-based enterprise

1. Cards are already on the table

Google isn’t getting a lost treasure chest filled with unimaginable secrets in this deal. Motorola was and is already actively engaged in patent litigation with a number of parties, including Apple and Microsoft. These actions will continue, according to assertions made by Google during yesterday’s conference call about the acquisition. Google may help Motorola sustain these legal battles, but it won’t necessarily create any new ones; Motorola stood to gain more by asserting its portfolio than Google does, since licensing fees could have benefited the faltering company in the same way they now help Kodak flesh out its bottom line. So it stands to reason that it looked long and hard at its portfolio to see what had the most potential. Even if Motorola hasn’t played all of its patent cards yet, it probably chose the strongest to play first.

A table showing the size of the biggest patent deals and IP portfolios. Source: UBS.

2. Broad licensing limits potential for legal action

Motorola’s patents have another weakness: According to experts like FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller and industry-watcher Steve Crowley, they are very broadly licensed. What that means is that many of Motorola’s patents are already legitimately licensed by parties involved in the smartphone patent battles, thus limiting their ability to be used as metaphorical intellectual property nukes in a “mutually assured destruction” scenario, as Mueller puts it.

3. These aren’t the patents you’re looking for

Motorola may have a lot of patents thanks to its role as a founder of cellular technology, but they don’t necessarily apply as specifically to newer technology, including smartphones like the iPhone and iPad. Motorola itself talks about its strengths lying more with network technologies and “video compression, decompression and security tech,” and Roughly Drafted points out that Google has been in the Android business longer than Motorola, which should have provided it with more time to acquire patents relevant to defending the platform.

Google may have bought Motorola at least in part for the patents, and it may come out considerably richer in that regard than it was before. But that doesn’t mean it has guaranteed itself immunity from the patent attacks that continue to be directed at Android, and I doubt we’ll see Apple deviate much from its current course in that regard as a result of this deal.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Research In Motion: future scenarios for its fate
• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
• Is Android broken and if so, will Google fix it?

Motorola's new Google-Ga-Ga baby monitors?

Google’s planned buy of Motorola Mobility is about patents and the war of mutual destruction in the mobile space. We get that, but it’s also about connected TV and carriers and how the convergence of broadband and data will change our lives. And so I found myself thinking about how, if Google wants to use Android as a way into the home, Motorola’s home automation, set-top box and broadband gear businesses now gives Google a platform from which to jump.

The mobile phone is poised to become our interface with the digital world, including the devices that control our lighting, in-home music and even home temperature. Don’t believe me, ask Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs or the folks at Sonos or anyone building Android or iPhone remotes for cable. Even Sanjay Jha, the CEO of Motorola Mobility has absorbed a bit of this thinking in some of his comments over the last few years.

So even as the world wonders if Google knows what it wants to do with Motorola’s home businesses, which include baby monitors, Bluetooth headsets and cable gear, it has the potential to make waves with consumers and especially with service providers.

This puts Google back in the home automation market.

Motorola Mobility clearly has been working on the home automation space for awhile. It purchased the startup 4Home last December. 4Home’s software enables home owners to access information — from digital media to energy info, home security and health data — across devices, and remotely and is used by Verizon in home automation/energy management pilots in New Jersey.

On the Google/Android side, Google has been looking to use Android as the layer to connect home devices, from connected light bulbs to other devices. So while, Google killed its separate home energy software PowerMeter earlier this year, it could end up back in the home automation game, this time with Android. And if Android is the dominant layer, Google didn’t really need PowerMeter, which was aimed at utilities. Android and Motorola’s 4Home software is aimed at carriers, a relationship Google is more familiar with, especially on the wireless side.

Wait, we’re buying our gear from Google?

However, on the wireline side Google may still have some fears to lay to rest. The company, which used to be ISPs’ favorite whipping boy (until they moved on to hating Netflix) will soon find itself owning through Motorola Mobility a large portion of the set-top box market as well as some of the gear inside the cable plants. According to Multichannel News this deal has created some strange new bedfellows in the service provider world:

In any case, the deal has shifted dynamics in the industry quite significantly: “Comcast overnight has become a huge customer of Google, and Comcast has no way out of that in the short run,” the executive said.

This sort of convergence may have been unintentional, but it’s also something that should be expected as broadband, not only brings people closer together, but also forces our networks and devices to merge. So soon Google will have not only have close relations with wireless carriers because of Android, but also wireline ISPs that have traditionally been cooler to the search giant.

Will it help wireline carriers keeps consumers in a pay TV world, or help ISPs deliver differentiated home automation services so they can forestall the process of becoming dumb pipes? Or might Google look at the unexpected businesses it picked up with its patents and dump them like I dump that insanely pink lipstick color I get whenever I get my “free gift with purchase” at the makeup counter?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room
• What the Google-Motorola deal means for Android, Microsoft and the mobile industry
• Got a Cable Subscription? There’ll Be an App for That

Nokia provided us a with an official statement in regard to Google’s $12.5 billion bid to purchase Motorola Mobility, suggesting the deal could be good for Microsoft’s mobile platform. I agree and alluded to that potential earlier today saying, “Now that Google will in some sense be competing with its hardware partners, some of them could choose to invest more resources in Microsoft’s platform as a result. In that scenario, Microsoft wins by gathering more handset support without needing to buy a hardware maker.”

Google has said it will run Motorola as a separate business, but that may not prevent current Android handset makers from fully trusting Google going forward. Instead of fully embracing Android then, where else can these companies turn but to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, which is the last major mobile platform available for licensing? Call me crazy, but for the first time since the Apple iPhone was introduced, I actually think Nokia is in a good position!

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• A global mobile handset forecast: 2011-2015
• The big theme of MWC: How to live in a connected world

But it also could be inviting some trouble if Android manufacturers grow antsy competing against the platform owner. And it also means that Google has just added 19,000 employees to its current base of 29,000, a huge leap in one fell swoop.

Here’s a look at what some are saying about the deal and its implications today:

All of the big Android manufacturers chimed in their almost identical support for the deal, which means they either believe Google’s claim that this is about providing broad protection for Android or they really have no choice but to show support to Google. Said J.K. Shin, President of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Division:

We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem.

FOSS Patents blogger Florian Mueller said observers shouldn’t put too much stock in the power of Motorola’s patents, which didn’t deter Apple or Microsoft from suing and may not provide much cover if Google tries to leverage them for legal actions beyond those Motorola already has going on. And it won’t provide blanket protection against some companies who won’t be swayed by cross-licensing deals, plus it means that Google now has to deal with patents suits filed against Motorola:

With respect to ongoing and future patent disputes (besides the ones in which Motorola is embroiled with Apple and Microsoft), there are many patent holders to whom this deal doesn’t matter. I doubt that Motorola Mobility holds a lot of patents that Oracle would be concerned about (while some of the patents Google recently bought from IBM could be useful against Oracle). There are medium-sized companies like Gemalto and Vertical Computer Systems. They most probably won’t be affected. And there are numerous non-practicing entities trying to collect royalties from Android device makers. Since they don’t have products of their own, no one can assert any patents against them. What will certainly change is Google’s need to engage in inbound licensing from such patent holders.

Google’s partners may publicly support the deal, but questions abound regarding how manufacturers will proceed long-term if they’re competing against Motorola for early access to Android releases and other advantages. Jason Hiner, Editor in Chief of TechRepublic said the deal could push HTC and other partners to start embracing Windows Phone 7 more, and it could ultimately prompt Microsoft to buy Nokia outright instead of partnering with them. Or Microsoft might consider buying up both companies in a bid to compete with Apple and Google. According to Hiner:

With all of its main rivals — Apple, Google, and HP — now vertically integrated in mobile, Microsoft is going to have to seriously consider whether it has to go the same route. If it sticks to the third-party model alone, it will have a hard time keeping up, since it takes a lot more time to release software and coordinate with vendors than to have hardware and software divisions working hand-in-hand throughout the entire product development life cycle.

Nilay Patel, a writer with This is My Next, tweeted that it will be a hard road for Google to operate a manufacturer while also licensing the operating system, a combo that’s proven difficult for others. He wondered in a longer post why Google didn’t just license the Motorola patents for much less:

All that said, it’s still curious why Google spent the full $12.5b on Motorola, instead of a smaller amount acquiring the rights to Moto’s patents — or the rights to litigate with those patents. (Or even something more like the Microsoft / Nokia deal, which involved patent cross-licensing and joint development by the two companies.) It’s easy to see why Google and Motorola joined forces to make the most out of Moto’s patents — but now they’ve got to explain how they’ll make the most out of what actually matters: Motorola’s products.

Google may not be interested in holding on to Motorola for long. Instead, it might be content to push the Android platform forward, and then spin off Motorola while sitting tight with the patents, which author and media consultant Jeff Jarvis called “rat poison“:

I disagree with those who say that Google had hardware envy vis a vis Apple. Google went into the hardware business and was smart enough to get out. I imagine that Google will operate Motorola as an independent entity; it won’t become Googley. Indeed, I can imagine Google spinning off the product arm, keeping the rat poison.

James Kendrick, a blogger with ZDnet had some interesting thoughts on the deal, saying it would invite an “anti-trust nightmare.” And ultimately, he too questioned how deeply Google is going to get into the hardware business:

Google doesn’t want to be a hardware company. It didn’t do so with the Chromebook, and it doesn’t want to be one with Android. Deep down.

The big pay-off may not be in smartphones. Steve Wildstrom of Tech.pinions said the combination of Google and Motorola, with its set top box business, may give Google another chance to make a play for the living room after its Google TV product has met with slow sales. Wildstrom wrote:

It [Google] could simply follow the Motorola course and go on making the set top boxes that cable operators want, but that seems profoundly un-Googley. Or it could strike a new course, offering the first mass-market home entertainment united that fully integrate cable and internet services. That could revolutionize the business–or drive all the cable operators to Cisco, which has never shown much inclination to rock this particular boat. My bet is that Google will at least try to build the product that Google TV should have been in the first place.

Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons wrote today that the deal shows the savvy of Google CEO Larry Page, who he says managed to get Apple and Microsoft to overpay for the Nortel patents while he pursued a bigger prize in Motorola. And he said it exposes Google’s competitors as patent bullies while at the same time making it easier for Google to get regulatory approval for the Motorola acquisition:

So now Google fires back, makes a huge acquisition, gets into the hardware business, buys up the best IP portfolio in the mobile space — and can position itself as a victim that’s just trying to defend itself against this gang of bullies. The Nortel auction just helps Google get approval for the Motorola purchase. Does anyone really believe this $12.5 billion acquisition just got thrown together in the last few weeks as a response to the AppleSoft patent grabs? Doesn’t it seem likely that Google and Motorola started talking long before the Nortel auction?

But Google may have paid for the wrong patents and could be inheriting more dysfunction than assets in Motorola, said Andrew Orlowski of the Register. He said the patents Motorola owns are mostly in radio engineering and design and most of vital radio patents are already covered by existing patent pools. Mostly, what Google will get, he said, is indigestion from swallowing Motorola.

Google has paid $12.5bn for a negotiating chip that appears to be almost impossible to redeem. In this light, the acquisition looks like panic, rather than a calm and carefully deliberated strategy. Google didn’t take IP seriously, bidding silly numbers (such as pi billion dollars) for the Nortel patents. Then it realised it might be in trouble, and so went out and bought some IBM patents. Now it has splurged $12.5bn, truly believing the IP is going to be useful.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• Social media in Q1: commerce and discovery dominated
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis

Our sources say that Motorola was in acquisition talks with several parties, including Microsoft for quite some time. Microsoft was interested in acquiring Motorola’s patent portfolio that would have allowed it to torpedo Android even further. The possibility of that deal brought Google to the negotiation table, resulting in the blockbuster sale.

Motorola found a Google deal more digestible because Microsoft had no interest in running a hardware business and was essentially interested in Motorola’s vast collection of patents. Google moved aggressively, and at $40 a share, Google is now paying a 60 percent premium to Motorola’s recent stock price. The deal it struck gives it access to Motorola’s strong portfolio of 17,000 current patents and 7,500 patent applications across wireless standards and non-essential patents on wireless service delivery.

The high-level talks between Google and Motorola started about five weeks ago. Google CEO Larry Page and Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha were talking directly, and only a handful of executives were brought into discussions. Our sources suggest that Android co-founder Andy Rubin was brought into the talks only very recently.

My view is that while Google might have won the battle, in the long run it has put the Android ecosystem at risk. Mobile industry insiders view this as a ray of hope for Windows Mobile Phone 7 to sign-up the disillusioned handset makers who at this point must be reworking their mobile OS strategies.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• What the Google-Motorola deal means for Android, Microsoft and the mobile industry
• U.S. Wireless Data Market: Q4 and Year-End 2008

Monday’s news of Google purchasing Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion underscores this shift, as another big player, namely Google, is in position to adopt such vertical integration. Google will effectively enter the hardware market with the Motorola acquisition, although it’s possible it will choose not to alienate its hardware partners and later divest Motorola while retaining the many patents it gained from this deal.

That’s unlikely though, because the mobile market is shifting away from the platform licensing model as the top companies are instead looking to replicate Apple’s business model, something my colleague Darrell thinks won’t happen for Google, even after the Motorola deal.

Outside of Google and Apple, take a close look at the rest of the “who’s who” in mobile and you can see the shift:

• Research In Motion. The company has always had an Apple-like approach, never licensing its BlackBerry OS to other companies. Instead, RIM integrated its hardware and software to build a popular brand, which it supplemented through closed services such as BlackBerry Messenger. That sounds like Apple, but a huge missing piece was an integrated mobile app store that provides easy one-stop shopping. RIM eventually added a store, called BlackBerry World, in April 2009 with 200 initial apps. Twelve months later, the company bought the QNX operating system and shows no signs of licensing it.
• Palm and HP. Like Apple and RIM, Palm controlled both the hardware and software of its devices, although it did license the Palm OS to Sony for several years. There was never a Palm OS app store, however, causing consumers to find their own third-party apps either directly from developers or independent stores that aggregated software titles. Palm eventually replaced the Palm OS with webOS, didn’t license it and was snapped up by HP for $1.2 billion in 2010. HP now sells webOS hardware, doesn’t license the platform — although says it’s open to the idea — and runs the webOS App Catalog for software sales. The company is rumored to be working on a music store and launched a movie store for webOS in July.
• Samsung. The company is poised to become the next smartphone king on the back of Android phones, but it’s hedging its bets with its own Bada platform, which is reportedly outselling Windows Phone 7 handsets. Samsung’s efforts to create media stores for e-books, music and video content helps make Samsung Android devices more appealing, but those stores could be leveraged by the company’s Bada phones. That would give Samsung its own ecosystem to supplement the platform and the hardware it builds.
• Microsoft. Licensing platforms is a core business model for Microsoft, which previously developed Windows Phone for hardware manufacturers to build around. Palm, HP, HTC, Samsung and many others used Windows Phone to get in the smartphone game prior to Apple’s 2007 entry. Microsoft continued this approach with its new Windows Phone 7 software, but added a mobile app store and penned a huge deal — reportedly $1 billion — for a flailing Nokia to rely on WP7 for smartphones going forward.

How far will Google go as a partner vs being a perceived competitor?

So the mobile space is now composed of four “complete” platforms with vertical integration and two “almost complete” with Google and Microsoft. Google is now closer to a fully integrated play, even though it says Motorola will be run as a separate company. The Motorola purchase is surely a patent play to help protect all Android licensees from current and potential future suits.

And Google’s hardware partners are praising that fact. The short quotes from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC and LG all share positive words for Google’s commitment to defend Android. But make no mistake: unless Google later divests Motorola Mobility, other Android partners could question Google’s motives with Android going forward. Horace Dediu’s Asymco blog notes the challenges of being both an owner and a platform partner:

[A] licensor that is also a licensee makes other licensees uncomfortable. The supplier is also a competitor. This is classic channel conflict and never ends well. Open or not, with or without equity, these arrangements are always unworkable.

Microsoft, it’s your move.

Even with such a warning, Microsoft is now in a unique position: Does it want to continue the licensing model or should it simply work a deal to buy Nokia — or another hardware maker — outright? Mary Jo Foley makes the case for no deal, saying Microsoft has little to gain. I think it’s too early to say yay or nay, however.

Now that Google will in some sense be competing with its hardware partners, some of them could choose to invest more resources in Microsoft’s platform as a result. In that scenario, Microsoft wins by gathering more handset support without needing to buy a hardware maker. The likely reason this hasn’t happened yet is that Android has sales momentum while Windows Phone 7 doesn’t. Simply put: Handset makers get more bang for their buck with Android right now.

On the other hand, Microsoft could see that its licensing model doesn’t allow for control over the complete mobile experience in terms of hardware, software, and ecosystem. If Microsoft wants to play the mobile game the same way others are, a Nokia purchase makes sense. From a patent standpoint, the buy would help Microsoft add to its existing portfolio of IP, which could turn into a billion dollar business: Microsoft currently earns royalties from Android handset makers.

Regardless of what Microsoft chooses to do — not to mention Android partners which are publicly smiling today over the Google-Motorola deal — the mobile market has changed. You can’t just build a solid smartphone and hope that it will sell. The whole package is now the end product: hardware, software, user experience, ecosystem and intellectual property to keep your business protected.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Tablet market to hit over 377 million units by 2016
• Mobile Q3: the fight for OS domination continues
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

Google TV has been a flop

Introduced to much fanfare last year, the first generation of Google TV products has largely underwhelmed consumers. Logitech, which invested heavily in the OS with its Google TV Revue set-top boxes, has taken a huge hit from the lack of interest in the product. It recently slashed the price of the Revue boxes from $249 to $99. Sony has also heavily discounted its first generation of Google TV products, slashing the price of its entry-level 24″ Google TV product in half.

While the second iteration of Google TV shows a little more promise, with a more open app ecosystem and improved user interface, Google would still largely be playing catchup in the home device market. Apple has sold more than a million Apple TVs, and Roku is on pace to have more than 3 million of its streaming boxes sold by the end of the year. That’s not even counting the millions of TVs and Blu-ray players from manufacturers like Samsung, Vizio and Toshiba that all have their own app ecosystem.

Motorola adds the scale, credibility Google TV needs

Google TV will get some benefit from existing Android applications, as they can be easily ported over to TV products. But with so few actual devices sold, Google might have difficulty giving developers a reason to build TV-specific applications, especially when there are so many other TV operating systems to choose from.

That could all change, as Google just bought a very strong player in the set-top box and home devices market. According to Infonetics, Motorola Mobility was the leader in set-top box revenues last year, and was also tops in hybrid IP/QAM set-top boxes — that is, the boxes used by operators like Verizon that combine broadcast TV and over-the-top applications. By leveraging Motorola’s position with carriers, Google can better solidify its bid to expand Google TV and Android into the living room.

On the call announcing the deal this morning, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha pointed to Motorola’s strong relationships with pay TV operators and noted there is a transition underway, as operators shift from traditional set-top boxes to IP-connected boxes. “There is great convergence between the mobile world and content that comes to the home through set-top boxes. Working with the carriers, we’ll be able to accelerate that convergence which will excite customers.”

Google TV could accelerate operators’ shift to the cloud

Many operators are using IP-based services in a bid to improve the user interface of and add applications to their set-top boxes. Comcast, for instance, recently unveiled a new cloud-based UI for its set-top boxes, and other operators — like Time Warner Cable and Cablevision — are looking to follow suit.

Until now, most set-top boxes have run proprietary operating systems. As a result, offering up Google TV as the underlying OS could simplify and accelerate the rollout of new applications on cable systems, which could improve the overall user experience on the set-top box. And by pitching Google TV as the underlying OS for Motorola set-top boxes sold to TV operators, it could very quickly create a large install base for developers to build applications for.

The one question is how open that set-top box will remain if Google shifts from a consumer- to a carrier-based model for Google TV. Operators in the TV space have been notorious for keeping their set-top experience a walled garden, and it’s unclear if they’d be willing to have their live TV and video on-demand services alongside applications like Netflix or Hulu Plus. Then again, before the iPhone and Android took over, no one thought the mobile operators would embrace an open app ecosystem on mobile handsets either.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How consumer media will change in 2013
• OTT technologies and strategies for broadcasters
• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room

1. Buying isn’t bonding

If you’re a big company like Google and you want to expand your reach, generally speaking you turn to acquisition to get the requisite skills and intellectual property. Apple does this, too. But improving a sub-feature of your mobile OS is a world apart from taking the two biggest parts of the smartphone equation (hardware and software) and mashing them together.

Apple has been doing both sides of the software/hardware coin for as long as it’s been making devices. The iPhone and iOS were born and grew up together. Apple doesn’t make a move on one without knowing how the other will be affected. Android is fully formed; it ships on devices as a consumer-ready product. Google can’t start from the ground up to create a device and software that are literally made for each other unless it wants to ditch Android entirely and go with something new to replace it.

2. Android will remain “open”

Android, unlike iOS, is designed to be device agnostic. Device-makers can customize it to some extent (by throwing custom software like Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC’s Sense interface on top of it, for instance), but ultimately, these efforts all have to make compromises, which is why it takes so much more processor power to achieve an experience as smooth as you’d find on iOS. In order to make sure that Android continues to work well on other manufacturers’ hardware, Google will have to make compromises too, something former Engadget editor Nilay Patel hinted at on Twitter upon hearing the news.

Google has to make sure that it keeps Samsung, HTC and others happy, and that means not introducing device-specific features that give its own handsets an edge over the competition. Otherwise, the Android-maker runs the risk of sending its greatest asset (a healthy network of hardware partners) running into the arms of a rival like Microsoft. Having to consider the concerns of outside interests means that Android won’t likely be able to achieve the same level of symbiotic integration Apple’s iPhone/iOS combo enjoys.

3. It hasn’t worked for others

Maybe the biggest reason not to expect Google to be able to mimic Apple’s success with a unified platform is that others who’ve tried to approach the idea in a similar way haven’t be able to either. I’m thinking mainly of Hewlett-Packard, which purchased Palm and webOS to boost its mobile business a little over a year ago. Considering webOS had a tiny two percent U.S. smartphone market share according to Nielsen in a recent count, that’s not working out too well.

It’s also worth noting that the two smartphone companies who have had success with a unified platform approach are actually seeing their stars fall recently. I’m talking about Research In Motion and Nokia, which are both suffering big losses in market share on a global scale. Nokia’s attempts to curtail its losses actually include abandoning the unified approach with the Microsoft deal it announced earlier this year, and RIM is poking around in Android’s backyard to make up for its own deficiencies. Android, on the other hand, has seen exponential growth based on a strategy that, to date, hasn’t at all involved making its own hardware.

Money can’t buy platform happiness

Building a unified mobile platform that benefits from a tight reciprocal relationship between hardware and software isn’t something Google can buy. It’s still possible that it can make this work with time, since it has done fairly impressive things with even just with close hardware/software partnerships like the HTC Nexus One and the Samsung Nexus S, but matching Apple’s model isn’t a realistic near-term goal. I don’t think that’s necessarily Google’s end-game with this play anyway, since Motorola’s patent library seems a much more practical incentive. But if you’re expecting a Googlephone that somehow delivers a “perfect” Android experience, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• What the Google-Motorola deal means for Android, Microsoft and the mobile industry
• Research In Motion: future scenarios for its fate
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis