GOOGLE CAN NOW MAKE ITS OWN HARDWARE FOR ITS ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM

Google announced today that it will pay $12.5 billion to purchase mobile phone-maker Motorola Mobility. This gives Google its own hardware products, likely affording the company a better competitive stance against phone- and tablet-makers like Apple, HP, and the Microsoft/Nokia alliance. Plus, Google now has access to “thousands of patents held by Motorola, which pioneered the cellphone business,” reports the San Jose Mercury News here.

The result? “Tighter integration between its [Google’s] hardware, operating system, and apps,” writes Evolver.fm’s Eliot Van Buskirk. The stability will hopefully lead tobetter apps, higher user confidence and a second mobile platform as robust as iOS — the operating system that helped kick off the mobile Net radio market.

This integration should “help resolvenumerous user complaints about Android,” Van Buskirk reasons. This would include the perception that Google’s Android platform “offers lower-quality apps” than Apple, and the relative unwillingness among users to spend money on apps (morehere).

Android is the most popular smartphone operating system in the U.S., according to Nielsen (more here). Google CEO Larry Page says the acquisition will “supercharge the entire Android ecosystem” (more here).

You can read Van Buskirk’s full article in Evolver.fm here.