China Approves Google's Motorola Acquisition as Long as Android Stays Open Source

Google is finally free to acquire Motorola and will probably do it this week after China has given its go-ahead on the deal. Both the EU and the US had agreed to the deal.

China was the last hurdle. Google announced that it would be acquiring Motorola in August last year, but the huge deal had to go through regulatory approval process in several regions. The US and the EU agreed that the deal would not pose monopoly concerns and approved it. However, regulators have noted that they will be keeping an eye on what Google does after the deal is closed, particularly whether it will restrict access to Android for other manufacturers or whether it will use the 17,000 patents it got along with Motorola for purely defensive reasons. China took longer than either the US and the EU. Motorola has a large business in the country, especially in manufacturing as it has several factories there.

China gave its approval over the weekend on the condition that Google keeps Android open source for at least another five years. Several local manufacturers have leveraged Android without a license from Google, which they could only have had with access to the open source version. Google agreed to pay $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility, which handles the mobile phone and the set top box businesses. Phones are what matters to Google, but it remains to be seen what the company plans to do with Motorola. The phone maker has been struggling in recent years and has only had mild success in the smartphone market that was dominated by HTC and later by Samsung, the Android smartphone market obviously.

What's more, Google has no experience in the hardware business, though it is making small inroads. There does seem to be an interest at the company in devices, not just phones, but also home media centers and, of course, the HUD glasses.

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