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Google Patent Wars rely on MAD Principles

17 December 2011

“Mutual Assured Destruction, or mutually assured destruction (MAD), is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction.”

This is effectively the plan from Google by purchasing Motorola Mobility for 12.5 billion. It is to combat Microsoft, Oracle and Apple in the current patent wars. Essentially Google is saying if you try and take us down with patent claims we are going to take you down with patents we just bought and it’s going to get nasty.

Let’s take a step back. In the good old days you could always bet that Microsoft would jump at the chance to do a bit of Apple butt kicking and Job’s was always on the front foot in verbal stoushes/abuse with Gates and Allen. This is not to mention the fact that Larry Ellison relished the opportunity to buzz Jobs in his P51 Mustang whenever Jobs got out on the water.

In short all these companies were archenemies and would stop at nothing to wipe each other out. Never in any person’s wildest dreams would they ever work together. Amazingly…it’s time to start dreaming wildly.

Apple, Oracle and Microsoft are now working in unison to hobble Android and make it pay for licenses (via patent use), which would then be passed onto the 31 manufactures building hardware with an Android OS. This would then drive the cost of handsets up (utilizing Android OS) for the end consumer. Not good. Currently the Android OS for device manufacturers is free to use.

Apple etc are not competing by making a better handset with greater capability and functionality. They are not thinking they will combat Android by making a better, more superior product. As David Drummond, Senior Vice President of Google states “They are fighting through litigation”

Microsoft, Apple and Oracle have even formed a company called the CPTN Group to purchase Novell’s old patent list to directly combat and create the aforementioned license fees for Android.

So the Droid boys look at the market and say “Well if they are going to make patent claims on us by purchasing patents we are going to do the same” hence the Motorola purchase.

Analyst claim that the Google purchase of Mobility was to not only provide patents but to give Google a piece of the IPTV pie as Motorola has a large installed base of set top boxes across the globe. This would mean better IPTV capability for Google in the home which would be backed by current installed infrastructure by Motorola in many million user plus ISP’s. ISP’s have always looked upon Google with trepidation until now. Instead Google and ISP’s will be bedfellows.

Furthermore this installed base of set top boxes could also be administered by a middleware layer of…. you guessed it… Android software running on Motorola handsets which is where the home automation play comes into action.

The Google purchase of Motorola Mobility is many things, but the No 1 reason for the acquisition was to fight a fight Google did not pick.

In essence some of the largest most cashed up companies in the world are battling it out, are spending billions and billions of dollars and dedicating some of the smartest business and legal brains on the planet to ultimately get control of your mobile phone.

What does this really mean? What does all this expenditure of money, company resources and CEO time mean? What does this MAD strategy mean? What does it mean when three of the worlds biggest companies who previously would gladly rip each other apart are now cheek to cheek?

It means that mobile is the No. 1 game in town.

No other area of technology is seeing this unprecedented outpouring of so much resource.

Mobile is where the serious future of computing, commerce, communication and evolution of connected devices is going. If you don’t believe me just ask the three biggest companies in the world who have just bet their current and future existence on it.

This is not the year of mobile; it is the millennia of mobile. Get on board or get out of the way.

Matt Lambert is the Managing Director of Misfit Mobile Pty Ltd. He has been in the mobile industry since 1994. He can be contacted at matt@misfitmobile.com

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