The takeover has provoked a defensive comment on purchase of patents, but Google certainly has a more ambitious

For several years, Google has been following a vow of former CEO Eric Schmidt: First mobile. New CEO Larry Page takes that dictum to buy to a new level by announcing a deal with Motorola Mobility for $ 12.5 billion.

The implications of this deal depend entirely on how Google plans to use Motorola. If, as some claim, the deal is more about obtaining Motorola's mobile patent portfolio than anything else, we can expect escalating patent warfare between technology giants and limited innovation beyond that. If, however, Google intends to operate the business it is acquiring, we may see some broad and sweeping changes in the technology industry.

If the deal is likely, especially on the receipt Motorola 's mobile phone patent portfolio, then Google would spin off the hardware end of the company and maintain the software and patents. The patents would be important weapons in competition with Apple and Microsoft to try as the two companies claims, the remarkable growth of Google 's Android operating system, which has been most widely used smartphone platform slowly.

But suppose Google wants the business it is to operate the shopping - and also on how it is likely that approval of the transaction - the landscape for Google and the technology industry in a broader sense will change. Some of the effects are already evident.

Maybe Google wants to be more like Apple, have an entire ecosystem around Android. Despite all his successes, Android has suffered from "Balkanization function", such as mobile phone manufacturers and network operators have an open source system to become their own goals.

Make Motorola know how good hardware (even if it 's in this respect already from Samsung and HTC excel in the Android Market), and one can imagine some excellent equipment - once Google controls the outcome, as with his Nexus One has first phone (made by HTC) and Nexus S (Samsung).

Such devices should tablets, a particularly dry area have been for Google and its Android 3 "honeycomb" operating system. To date, Android tablets, has dominated among Motorola 's Xoom, very few interventions in an arena much from Apple. This may need a change in tablet Buy this autumn, but Google to create its own to showcase what is possible.

In the near future, it is difficult to fully matching any competitor Apple 's ability to hardware and software with elegance and ease imagine getting married. Where do Google, Apple could beat, but with less control of the users as Apple has become: a reason why many people (myself included) have chosen Android, is a privilege and more of our own decisions about how we want our devices to to make work.

To the extent that Google uses Motorola for the development and launch of outstanding units, it will directly compete with its partners. The company claims that the deal will not affect its relations with other Android phone manufacturers, but that strikes me as fantasy. Happy Talk in a cascade of similarly amusing, supportive statements from Samsung, HTC, etc on Monday can 't disguise the reality that they should be weighing their options with new urgency. I don 't see why they should trust Google, at this point.

So who should be happy about this deal? Microsoft, among others. The Google-Motorola deal gives the Windows Mobile platform a new lease of life. Microsoft could now positioned itself as the only major operating system that is platform independent. This neutrality is somewhat suspect given Microsoft 's recent alliance with Nokia, which includes a major investment and all kinds of special treatment, but it will be \ in Microsoft's interest, as neutral as possible in dealing with its mobile partners.

Another, less obvious dimension of this deal is that Google can help make tremendous progress in the TV market. Google has tried with limited success, to push for Android in the living room TV via Google. Since Motorola makes set-top boxes, TV, Google could become part of this market. But the other cable and satellite companies have a lot to say about it - and they already consider Google a scary competitor, not a partner.

The most discussed element of the business - the patents - Highlights of the technology industry 's worst problems. As Chicago Public Radio 's This American Life recently reported, America' s patent system is highly dysfunctional. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) routinely issues patents for "non-obvious inventions," many of which have already been invented. This patent allows "trolls" to settlements from companies allegedly violating the patents to extort, that is, in fact, a tax on technology innovation and a severe disability itself. Meanwhile, several federal district courts - especially in Texas - are havens for the patent trolls, further tilting the scales in favor of the plaintiff. And Congress, as usual, has refused to do his job. Among other acts of malfeasance, Congress has denied the USPTO needs the funding to do the job properly, partly through the appropriation of the fees the agency collects from the applicants to fund other programs. A patent 'reform "bill now under consideration and would be only too likely to gain the force of law by rational analysis, the matter worse.

To the extent that the Google-Motorola is much defensively, a purchase of weapons in the ever growing patent warfare, they can hardly be as productive. But I hope, \ it's about much more than that, Google 's intention to push harder in the mobile arena to open it to more competition.