Daily Authority: 📅 Android timeline for Windows 11

🥶 Good morning! This is one of those days where you question why you live in a place that hurts your face when you go outside…

Android apps on Windows 11 almost here

On Jan 29 back in 2014, Google announced it would sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion, less than three years after it bought the company for $12.5 billion. Sounds tough right? Well, maybe not.

  • Google sold off Motorola’s cable modem and set-top box business for $2.35 billion.
  • Motorola at the time of acquisition had $3 billion in cash and $1 billion in tax credits, as well.
  • And the patent portfolio it acquired seems like it had riches: Even when Google sold to Lenovo, it did retain the “Advanced Technologies & Projects unit” as part of Android, and retained IP.
  • The official press release at the time said “Google will maintain ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, including current patent applications and invention disclosures.”
  • And even though Motorola lost hundreds of millions every quarter it was part of Google, the tax benefits were substantial: reported at $700M a year in deductions.
  • It still doesn’t strike me as one of Google’s best moves, and it took Google years to get back to releasing ultra-competitive devices like the Pixel 6 series.

Have a good one! Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor.

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