USA: Google to buy Motorola Mobility in surprise hardware move

Google shook up the mobile phone industry with the announcement it is buying US smartphone maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in cash in a bid to extend the reach of its Android platform.The surprise move gives Google a strong patent portfolio to defend Android against lawsuits from rivals such as iPhone and iPad maker Apple and turns an Internet company known for its software into a hardware manufacturer.

Google Inc. is looking to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.

Since the advent of the first, achingly slow-cell phone Web browsers a decade ago, smart-phone evangelists have predicted an impending golden age of the mobile internet. Your phone would serve as a mini laptop, the story went, not only enabling you to communicate through voice, text, and email, but also harnessing the Web to let you conduct business, decipher facts about your location, and entertain you along the way.

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Other handset makers may be forced to realign their allegiances, cutting deals to put new operating systems on their phones or buying firms themselves to gain valuable technology patents.Google Inc.'s $12.5-billion agreement to buy mobile handset maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.

Google announced it will buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, in a move that will give the Internet giant a presence in smartphone hardware and bring it thousands of new patents. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company expects to complete the deal by late 2011 or early 2012 though the purchase may be subject to government ...