After furious bidding that saw Google and Intel’s hopes crushed–Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Sony, EMC and Ericsson scooped up Nortel’s patents for $US4.5 billion. The 6,000 patents span wireless, data networking, 4G and internet, and while we don’t know what they all plan to do with them, it’s notable that Google got excluded. [Reuters]
Travis
Friday, July 1, 2011 at 8:52 PMSo you place Apple and RIM in the title but instead of placing Apple & MSFT the 2 companies most fiercely competing with Google. I could maybe understand if you did it alpha-alpha but you didn’t. Any chance you dig at MSFT Giz.
Danny Allen
Friday, July 1, 2011 at 8:57 PMHmm. *strokes chin*
Apple and RIM both make actual phone hardware (MS doesn’t)…
…and they’re both in the news a lot these days…
Hmm…
Could be that, chance, or the fact that you’re reading into it waaayy to much ;)
Take your pick.
justin
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 12:01 AMpretty sure MSFT is in the news more than RIM… for good reasons atleast
ozoneocean
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 3:37 AMNo, he’s not reading too much into it, but his interpretation is wrong. RIM and Apple are the biggest competitors to Android, mentioning both of them in this title is a deliberate hook to get in readers thinking along those Android vs Apple vs Blackberry lines.
But perhaps that sets the wrong impression… The lines aren’t as clear here, especially since Sony and Ericsson make hardware for a number of companies…
olearymo
Monday, July 4, 2011 at 11:07 AMYeah, they’re also biased against Ericsson. Ericsson HATERZ!
Norgan
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 10:40 AMI think it’s pretty clear that the battle is no longer about hardware but more about the software on them, after all hardware is all pretty much capable, it’s how you are enabled to use it that’s important.
Based on that statement then the headline would be Apple v Google v MS v RIM
If you want to base it on relevance then the biggest movers today are Apple v MS V Google.
ozoneocean
Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 9:14 PMReading some more on this it appears Google didn’t really want to win the auction afterall- all its bids were silly math jokes, literally: the distance of the earth from the sun, the answers to popular mathematical theorems, and even Pi to something like 12 decimal places. -Funny even to a non-maths person like me!
Most likely they don’t mind paying for the licences to this tech (they already do anyway) and just wanted to bid up the auction in order to make Apple, Rim, MS, Sony and ECM pay much, much more.
Francis
Monday, July 4, 2011 at 12:04 PMThe fact that Google does not make hardware device nor indemnify Android makers for patent infringement, it simply did not make sense for them in the end to purchase the Nortel patents.