Google: We Bought Motorola To "Protect" The Android Ecosystem

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Advertisement Good morning! The huge news everyone's talking about isGoogle buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Here's what you need to know: Google bought Motorola mostly to buy patents andprotect the Android ecosystem from Apple andMicrosoft. Here's how Google explained the acquisition → Google could also do cool stuff around Google TV with Motorola's set-top box and home video business. It's just a huge, headache-heavy deal: 19,000 new employees, hardware factories, a crappy commodity business, a huge breakup fee, potentially massive layoffs... Here's everything Google just bought → In other words, it could be a disaster. (But hey, corporate raider Carl Icahn made $415 million from the deal, so it's all good.) In other news... Apple will release its next iPad in the Spring of 2012, not November as some people think, the latest report says. Foursquare introduced Lists, its latest big feature, which lets people plan future check-ins and share trips. Tiger Global, the big hedge fund that often makes tech-related bets, has an enormous $2 billion stake in Yandex, the "Google of Russia." (And JP Morgan says the Russian Internet is a screaming buy.) Facebook billionaire Peter Thiel is going to make even bigger tech bets, thanks to his Clarium Capital hedge fund. BONUS: The ugliest tablet OS we've seen. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.