Henry Blodget: Google-Motorola will be a “colossal disaster”
Henry Blodget, writing for Business Insider:
If all Larry really wants in the Motorola deal is that bag of patents and plans to spin off Motorola’s operating business immediately, fine. Even this will be tough to execute–getting approvals for the deal will take months if not a year or more–but it’s a manageable challenge.
But if Larry plans to keep Motorola and operate it as a stand-alone business, as Google said on the conference call yesterday, look out. This deal could easily end up in the same Hall of Shame that enshrines AOL Time Warner and many more of the worst mergers in history.
Google is arguably the best tech company at acquisitions. But this one is so big — and so far out of Google’s comfort range — that it does seem very unlikely to be successful.
On one hand, I could totally see a quick, no-look spinoff or sale of Motorola’s operating business once Google gets ahold of the patents.
But on the other hand, these are the guys with a 767 party plane. Maybe Larry Page has some crazy ideas that are worth pursuing.
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