14 DAY TRIAL // Google bought Motorola strictly for the patents and the mobile phone business. But as with any deal this size, there are perhaps unintended or secondary benefits, because Motorola also does big business making TV set-top boxes, cable and DSL modems, WiFi routers and even baby monitors.
In fact, may cable operators in the US, which are none too friendly to Google, rely on Motorola hardware to provide to their subscribers.
The opportunity couldn't be more clear, Google TV needed an outlet and the huge market share Google bought along with Motorola could provide it.
"Motorola is also a market leader in the home devices and video solutions business," Google CEO Larry Page wrote in his announcement of the deal.
"With the transition to Internet Protocol, we are excited to work together with Motorola and the industry to support our partners and cooperate with them to accelerate innovation in this space," he said.
Clearly, Google has seen the opportunity as well and hints that it saw more in Motorola than the patents and the phone business.
What's more, it's already moving to pacify any existing partners, aka cable providers, that are surely looking at the deal with a fair amount of skepticism.
Google TV aimed to merge the web and TV experience into something seamless. It didn't manage to, but Google is not giving up. Already, it's working on a big revamp, based on Android Honeycomb, and on a second launch, hopefully one that works out better.
But even if it is a good product, Google TV still faces several hurdles. For one, buyers have to use it along with their existing set-top boxes. Few people want yet another device cluttering up their TV space.
Building the Google TV software into Motorola-built set-top boxes, distributed by cable operators to many of their subscribers would ensure millions of users that need no convincing.
Of course, anything like this is still many months away. The revamped Google TV is not out yet and the Motorola deal is not expected to close until the end of the year. That is, unless antitrust scrutiny doesn't push it past that.
Even after that, debuting a new line of products and ensuring that cable operators want to buy them is not something that happens over night.