Google said today it has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, giving the search giant valuable intellectual property and getting it directly into the handset business.
Google will pay $40 a share in cash for Motorola, a 63 percent premium over the company’s closing stock price on Friday. The acquisition will “mildly” add to earnings once the deal closes by year’s end or early 2012, Google said.
The deal simultaneously lends stability to and shakes up the Android world. With Motorola, Google gets a treasure trove of patents to defend itself and its partners against a rising tide of legal opposition. Over the past few months, major technology players such as Apple and Oracle have sued either Google or its partners in an attempt to slow down their competitors and extract licensing fees.
