Google gulps down mobile giant

Watching IT

By ALLAN D. FRANCISCO

August 22, 2011, 8:00am

 

MANILA, Philippines -- Google's founders said they would never ever be evil. They did not say they would never be huge.

A few days ago, they showed just how big they have become. And they did it in a huge way.

But, as some pundits say, the search giant's latest acquisition move has undeniably shown that it is afflicted with the disease that most other IT companies seem afflicted with: I-want-to-be-Apple syndrome.

While Google has consistently spun its purchase of Motorola as part of its overall efforts to protect the Android mobile ecosystem from patent lawsuit attacks by Apple and Microsoft and their minions, the purchase deal smells of a not so smooth attempt at gaining control of the whole kitchen. The move simply reeks of a Jobsian desire for total control, of everything from software to hardware design and tweaks.

Unsurprisingly, Android handset makers have promptly declared they are remaining loyal to Google's open-source mobile kingdom. They dutifully concurred with the search giant's justification of the Motorola purchase, saying that such a move only strengthens the platform. Never mind that now, Google is directly competing with them for consumers' wallets.

They never pay attention to some industry observers' assertion that Google seems intent on making Android into a less "open-source" platform. Well, people have been known to walk calmly to their places of execution.

Nobody says high-tech companies are immune to such forms of being resigned to whatever fate might bring.


T-Mobile, Next in Line?

The ink had barely dried on the Motorola purchase deal when market pundits began saying that Google emerges from the merger as a possible buyer of US mobile service provider T-Mobile.

What are these so-called analysts ingesting? What are driving them to make such crazy claims? On second thought though, they make sense.

Any corporate giant with greater-than-Jobs ambitions should be bold and ready to throw the dice — even obscenely huge dices bigger than the casino itself.

You want to outdo Apple? Then be ready to go where Apple itself dares not to (at least, not yet). Notorious for being a control freak, Apple owns the whole ecosystem. Hardware, software, and everything else in between belong to Jobs. Of course, third-party app developers believe they own their parts of the iOS environment. They can dream on, and continue taking whatever drugs they might have been taking in.

Anyway, how can another high-tech company out-Apple Apple?

Google's purchase of Motorola paves the way for such bold gambit, one that has previously been an unthinkable move — to buy a mobile network.

That would be like Cherry Mobile buying Globe or Smart, after it had acquired maybe Microsoft Philippines