Motorola purchase allows Google to challenge Apple

Google’s purchase of mobile manufacturer, Motorola, will put Google in good stead to challenge rival Apple more directly, according to analyst firm Ovum.

Web search giant and mobile OS manufacturer, Google, announced its intention to purchase Motorola for US$12.5 billion earlier this week.

With the purchase, Google will move away from its hardware-agnostic roots - previously merely the producer of Android OS - and will begin making Android phones of its own.

The move will put Google in a good spot to challenge Apple, and it's iPhone, more directly.

“The acquisition of Motorola Mobility presents the strongest means at Google’s disposal to challenge Apple,” said Tony Cripps, Principal Analyst at Ovum.

This is true not just in the smartphone market, but in TV, also.

“Indeed, we would not be surprised if part of the subtext to this acquisition is to revivify Motorola and to restore it to its former position of US tech archetype, a position it only lost in the past few years to Apple,” Cripps said.

However, this may be a tough task for Google, with Cripps pointing out that “Motorola Mobility currently only boasts around a 2.5% share of the global handset market”.

Despite Motorola’s small market share, Google has picked up a raft of tech patents; Motorola currently holds around 17,000, with another 7,000 pending globally.

“If nothing else, Google’s expanded patent portfolio will give it - and presumably Android licensees - more latitude to point the metaphorical intellectual property gun back at its rivals in cases of dispute, in what is set to become a very litigious age in the consumer and communications technology spaces,” said Cripps.