Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) — Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., the mobile-phone maker that agreed to be bought this week for $12.5 billion by Google Inc., cannot solicit other offers, according to terms of the merger agreement published today.

All employees and directors of the company as well as outside advisers and legal counsel had to stop any solicitation of other proposals as of Aug. 15, the document states. Still, Motorola’s board has a fiduciary duty to consider any unsolicited superior proposal it may receive, according to the agreement.

Google, the world’s largest maker of smartphone software, is buying Motorola Mobility to gain mobile patents and expanding in the hardware business. Both boards have approved the takeover, which provides Motorola Mobility shareholders a 63 percent premium over the stock’s closing price on the trading day preceding the offer.

Motorola Mobility, based in Libertyville, Illinois, rose 11 cents to $38.13 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. Google, based

in Mountain View, California, fell $5.85, or 1.1 percent, to $533.15 yesterday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Google has agreed to pay Motorola Mobility $2.5 billion if the deal falls through, the contract states. Motorola Mobility would pay $375 million if it decided not to sell to Google, according to the agreement.

Via: sfgate/bloomberg

Android’s always had a best friend forever (or, for the time being) in Verizon. Together, the two companies were able to establish Andy Rubin’s mobile OS as a serious platform competitor, fighting back against the then threat of AT&T’s exclusive iPhone juggernaut with Moto’s Droid. Flash forward to present day and it’s no wonder Big Red’s SVP John Thorne is giving a public-facing, albeit tentative, thumbs up to Google’s Motorola Mobility acquisition. Thorne’s official line on the deal concerns the “stability [it might bring] to the ongoing smartphone patent disputes,” but the executive declined to comment further, citing a lack of known details for the proposed buyout. Certainly, the wireless operator has good reason to keep a close eye on the takeover, as a recent Chitika survey pegs it with a commanding 41 percent share of active Android handsets. So far, only Nokia has come out from behind Microsoft’s shadow, hailing the move as a boon for WP7 and casting shade on Google’s intentions. As for the rest of the industry, it appears they’re all making heavy use of that nifty statement generator. Hit the more coverage link to see what we mean.

via: wsj

Motorola’s latest Android smartphone lives up to its name.

Fast, big and light, the Photon 4G is Motorola’s new powerhouse smartphone, another in a trend of increasingly powerful handsets debuting this year. We had some hands-on time with the phone before its debut next week.

Picking up the device for the first time is a bit strange. With its 4.3-inch screen and considerably large physical dimensions (2.63 by 4.99 by .48 inches), you’d expect the Photon to possess some degree of heft. And yet, it doesn’t — at least, not to the degree that its appearance suggests.

At 5.57 ounces, the Photon’s weight feels more like its titular particle than anything else (aptly, an actual photon has no mass). That’s the result of the plastic construction that composes the phone’s body, complete with a slightly matted rubberized back panel to make for an improved grip. While it’s nice not to lug around a brick in my pocket, the phone seems almost too light for what ultimately feels like a cumbersome shape. It felt bulky yet still fragile in my hands — and I’ve got pretty big hands.

Flip the Photon over and you’ll notice a nod to HTC’s Thunderbolt — both devices come with a metal kickstand on the back, ostensibly for watching video on the phone for an extended period of time. It was a clever flourish, though I can’t see myself using it on surfaces other than airplane tray tables. And besides, if I decide to use the multimedia dock (not included) to hook my Photon up to a larger monitor, why worry about the 4.3-inch screen at all? Still, it’s fun to flick open and shut, and it may appeal to the frequent flying crowd.

Whether or not you want to view media on the phone’s screen, it’ll display brilliantly. I watched a few YouTube music videos with the brightness cranked up to 11, and clips ran beautifully. It’s like a miniature drive-in, sans popcorn.

One of the main perks of the Photon is its dual-core processor innards. It’s sporting the same Nvidia Tegra 2 1-GHz chip that debuted in the Motorola Atrix earlier in the year. Like the Atrix, the Photon is zippy. Applications launched swiftly, and I zoomed in and out of menu screens with relative ease. Backed by a gig of RAM, a dual-core smartphone is the way to go (until Nvidia debuts its quad-core chips for mobile, that is).

Another big bonus — for the Photon, Sprint’s Wi-Max connection works swimmingly. Page-load times were cut into fractions of what we’ve seen on rival networks like T-Mobile or AT&T. The Thunderbolt — which runs on on Verizon’s 4G LTE network — was the last phone we’ve tested that performed at speeds like these.

It’s worth mentioning that the Photon ships with Android version 2.3.4 — the latest iteration of the operating system for smartphones. While being super up to date may not be crucial to you, it’s nice to see at least one manufacturer not shipping an out of date OS directly out of the gate.

The Photon hits the street on Sprint’s 4G network on July 31, and will cost you a cool $200 with a two-year contract.

Via: wired