There’s this pretty crazy, although not completely unbelievable rumor that Google is in talks with Huawei to sell off the Motorola hardware division, which means they did in fact buy Motorola mostly for their 25,000 patents. I was actually expecting Google to try some new cool things with Motorola’s hardware division, or at least if they didn’t want to get very involved so they don’t upset their partners, they could’ve still made it so all Motorola’s devices would use stock Android from now on.
That wouldn’t be a terrible thing for their partners, or at least it shouldn’t be, because after all they are the ones deciding to stick with their skins instead of using Android. And if they think that using stock Android would give Motorola an advantage, then why aren’t they doing it themselves?
On the other hand, Google is already thinking of making other type of hardware anyway, hardware that probably even Motorola wouldn’t know how to make – like the Google Glasses, or even the self-driving cars. And then it might not be worth making their partners angry by keeping Motorola, and they could just give it to Huawei.
This would actually not be a terrible outcome for Google at all. Huawei is a manufacturer that is quickly becoming a top maker of quality Android phones with great specs and performance. I even believe they’ve surpassed LG in most areas, and I see them quickly becoming even better, maybe within a year they will even compete with Samsung and HTC. This sort of competition would benefit Google in the android ecosystem.
Plus, they might even get to have such a good relationship with Huawei, that they even get them to make stock Android phones themselves. And Huawei might actually agree with that, since they probably don’t want to bother with all the extra software development that is involved in making skins, and they want to keep their products as low-priced as possible, even at the high-end. While I’ll still remain with the thought about “what could’ve happened” if Google continued to own Motorola, I’m equally excited about Huawei become a better and bigger player in the Android market, and Motorola would help them gain ground faster in the western markets.