The rest of the regulatory chips should fall in line for Google and Motorola after E.U. approval. The merger still needs to be approved in the U.S., China, Israel and Taiwan, but the logic of the European Commission is sound. Motorola only took 2% of profits from the entire mobile industry last year. From an anti-trust perspective, Google could buy Sony Ericsson and LG and still not come anywhere near the combined market share of Samsung and Apple.

Update: The U.S. Department of Justice has also approved the acquisition. See below for details.

The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division issued the following statement today after announcing the closing of its investigations into Google Inc.'s acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., the acquisitions by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) of certain Nortel Networks Corporation patents, and the acquisition by Apple of certain Novell Inc. patents:

"After a thorough review of the proposed transactions, the Antitrust Division has determined that each acquisition is unlikely to substantially lessen competition and has closed these three investigations. In all of the transactions, the division conducted an in-depth analysis into the potential ability and incentives of the acquiring firms to use the patents they proposed acquiring to foreclose competitors. In particular, the division focused on standard essential patents (SEPs) that Motorola Mobility and Nortel had committed to license to industry participants through their participation in standard-setting organizations (SSOs). The division's investigations focused on whether the acquiring firms could use these patents to raise rivals' costs or foreclose competition.

"The division concluded that the specific transactions at issue are not likely to significantly change existing market dynamics."

Ostensibly, Google is buying Motorola Mobility for its 17,000 patents. Unlike Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC, Motorola has faired well in the patent wars, winning battles against Apple in courts around the world in recent weeks. Motorola lost the most recent battle over "3G" technology in Germany but overall has faired better than other Android device makers like Samsung.

"We have approved the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google because, upon careful examination, this transaction does not itself raise competition issues. Of course, the Commission will continue to keep a close eye on the behaviour of all market players in the sector, particularly the increasingly strategic use of patents," said Joaquin Almunia, VP in charge of competition policy at the European Commission in a release.

What Almunia is really saying is, "everybody is suing the hell out of everybody else and we will keep track of Google to make sure it does not abuse these patents."

One snag that Google could face outside of the E.U. is the fact that Motorola has a small presence in Europe. The commission notes that in its statement saying, "Google would restrict the use of Android solely to Motorola, a minor player in the European Economic Area, as compared to operators such as Samsung and HTC."

When Google announced the acquisition, CEO Larry Page said it was intended to defend and "supercharge" Android. Many Android OEMs pay patent licensing fees to Microsoft and are hounded by Apple in courts. Google's primary mission with Android is to drive mobile advertising and adoption of Google apps (like Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Music etc.) on smartphones. The commission said that Google's acquisition of Motorola would not enhance or inhibit the search giant's ability to push users toward those services.

"The Commission also examined whether Google would be in a position to use Motorola's standard essential patents to obtain preferential treatment for its services, including search and advertising. The Commission found that Google already had many ways in which to incentivise customers to take up its services and that the acquisition of Motorola would not materially change this," the report stated.

The commission also stated that it "cooperated with a number of competition authorities and in particular with the U.S. Department of Justice."

That last line could be very telling in how the U.S. treats the proposed merger. If the U.S. DOJ consulted the European Commission then it is more likely that the two entities share the same ideas on the merger.

Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola should not affect the ecosystem at large, considering that Apple and Samsung own 95% of mobile phone profits worldwide. Page may see Apple's profits and want to get in on the device game but the idea is to use Motorola to protect Android.

You answered and we culled your responses from Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook, and used Storify to present it all back to you. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

Google had very healthy second quarter earnings. Yet, it missed Wall Street expectations and the stock has taken a hit. Advertising accounted for 96% of Google's revenues, with near 66% of that on Google's own sites. Overall, Google's revenues were $6.82 billion. Google's investment in Android "is not material to the company" meaning that Google spends little on Android yet gets a decent return on its investment. Yet, there is a powder keg of money under Android and Google is seeing next to none of it in proportion to the ecosystem. So, Google needs to protect the future of Android for the value of mobile search it can advertise against. There are untold billions that Google could tap if it was more vertically integrated. Enter Motorola.

Analysts: Android Development in a Less Open World After Google + Motorola

Google: Buying Motorola is "Pro-Competitive" [Transcript]

Defending Android & The Ecosystem

There is a patent war raging in the technology industry. Mobile is the forefront of the battlefield.

Google knows this and feels persecuted by it. In a blog post a couple of weeks ago, Google wrote about losing out on the Nortel patents to a group led by Microsoft, Apple and others. The going price for the patents was initially thought to be about $1 billion, yet the competition for the patents saw the final sale skyrocket to $4.5 billion. That is a hefty chunk of change, even for Google.

"We're not naive; technology is a tough and ever-changing industry and we work very hard to stay focused on our own business and make better products," wrote Dave Drummond, Google's chief legal officer. "But in this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we're determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it."

Motorola has 17,000 mobile patents, with 7,500 pending. The question that people have to ask is if Motorola Mobility (MMI), based on patents alone, is worth $12.5 billion. The acquisition price was near $40 a share, or a 63% markup from what MMI was trading for upon market close on Friday, Aug. 12.

The answer has to be no. If this was a pure patent play, Google would not have spent the time or money that it did to get MMI in pocket.

In the conference call, Drummond said "We think that protecting that [the Android] ecosystem is pro-competitive almost by definition."

This is surely a note to regulators in the U.S. and E.U. that are going to be taking a long, hard look at Google and Motorola. Google made sure that it got the rest of the major players in the Android OEM ecosystem on board with the acquisition before it was announced. The Google investor relationships page has some plastic quotes from Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson and LG leaders to roll out for the announcement.

Here they are:

"We welcome today's news, which demonstrates Google's deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem," said J.K. Shin, president of Samsung's mobile division.

"I welcome Google's commitment to defending Android and its partners," said Bert Nordberg, president and CEO of Sony Ericsson.

"We welcome the news of today's acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem," Said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.

"We welcome Google's commitment to defending Android and its partners," said Jong-Seok Park, president and CEO of LG's mobile division.

While those are some very nice canned answers by the major Android players that make a ton of money on the platform, they are a little too convenient (and similar) to be comfortable.

Forrester analyst John McCarthy notes that it is not as simple as it seems.

"The deal leaves Google in a very awkward position of being half-pregnant and trying to be a provider of an open source 'environment' while at the same time competing with its 'customers,'" McCarthy wrote in a blog post. "It also means that there are four integrated hardware/software offerings: Apple/iOS, HP/WebOS, RIM/QNX, and now Google/Motorola and potentially a 5th if this deal emboldens Microsoft to pull the trigger on the long-rumored full take over of Nokia. The Apple story of simplicity and focused innovation at the app level has won out over complexity and innovation at all levels."

Tristan Louis, an Internet pioneer and journalist, notes that there is very little downside for Google in purchasing Motorola. Motorola Mobility has near $3 billion in cash assets and makes about $3.3 billion a quarter. Louis notes that as a patent play (given the Nortel rate set in June), these patents come cheap.

Playing Against Android

Some question whether Google can tenably defend Android no matter what it does. A fair amount of Android code is based on Java, which is now controlled by Oracle after its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Oracle wants to basically shut down Android, or at least take a large chunk of its profits from Google based on mobile search revenue.

Apple has been fighting Android by proxy, filing injunctions against Samsung in Australia and the European Union to keep the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 off shelves. Apple is embroiled in patent litigation with nearly all the Android OEMs as well. Unlike Microsoft, which just wants a cut of the pie, Apple looks like it wants to keep Android from hitting store shelves in general. Apple has a right to be a touch ill at ease, especially when it comes to the tablet market. Though the iPhone is hugely popular, the Samsung Galaxy S has taken a significant amount of market share from Apple's popular device. With Samsung's strategy of supporting all carriers and standards and getting devices into every type of market vertical, Apple has to fear that the Galaxy Tab series will similarly cut into iPad sales.

Microsoft has been fighting the Android OEMs (and Google directly) over several issues, mobility included. Windows Phone has been a commercial flop since its release last November and Microsoft has to wait for Nokia to build a couple great devices before it can really see if it has something on its hands. There is a huge marketing blitz coming this holiday season for Windows Phone, similar to what Microsoft did with the Xbox, which eventually became profitable after years of Redmond fighting for market traction.

"If Microsoft passes on the Nokia aquisition, this deal could throw Windows Mobile a temporary life-line," McCarthy wrote. "Forrester can hear Steve Balmer and company pitching the Asian players on how Microsoft is the only hardware agnostic player left and that HTC, Samsung, and LG should increase their support for Windows Mobile as protection against Google favoring its own hardware play."

There is a Linux element that is playing against Android as well, or could be. As the FOSS Patents blog points out, there are potentially "thousands of people out there who could legally shake down Android device makers" because of disclosure of the GPLv2 license under which Linux is published. For more on that, head over to FOSS.

Being Greedy Does Not Mean Being Evil

Every time Google rocks the boat with an acquisition, the pundits come out of the woodwork and yell, "They are being evil! They said they were not going to be evil!"

It is getting kind of old.

What do companies do? They try to make money and grow. Google, fairly, creatively or not, has grown significantly and is moving aggressively into new market segments almost every month. The market has been fighting back for some time and the Nortel/Novell patent issues are only part of it.

Google is not being evil by purchasing MMI. Nor, as the company would want you to believe by rolling out its Android partners with nice things to say about "defending the ecosystem," is Google being entirely altruistic. The fact of the matter is that Google owns 43.4% of the smartphone market worldwide and that is split between five major vendors (Motorola being one) with a lot of smaller vendors doing well (Huawei, ZTE etc.).

Google is being greedy.

The best companies are greedy. It is a capitalist society and everybody is out for themselves. Google sees its future in mobile and in the cloud. Hence, it needs to defend its core mobile product in Android. Outside of Motorola, Google will fight for more patents that become available down the road. So will Apple, Microsoft and everybody who could possibly have a stake in the mobile ecosystem. Apple is greedy (for a lot of reasons outside of just patents) and so is Microsoft (ditto to Apple).

Apple is making billions upon billions of dollars through iOS. As one ReadWriteWeb employee pointed out today, Google looks to be trying to defend itself against the largest stockpile of cash in history. Apple is doing all of this by controlling only 18.2% of the smartphone market. The idea for Google is to grow Motorola so that it can control between 5% and 15% of the market for devices itself. This is completely reasonable, as we noted in our first post about Google/Motorola.

Good For Everybody? Bad For Everybody?

Outside of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, this is the biggest thing to happen in the mobile market this year and probably since Android really started to rise in 2009 (sorry, Nokia/Microsoft, you just are not quite as big).

We will see how things shake out. Will the other Android OEMs, despite there current grinning expressions, take as kindly to this acquisition as Google would want everybody to believe? Is there an opening for Windows Phone as a "manufacturer agnostic" player to become the new Android?

How about new devices coming from Motorola, HTC, Samsung? Does Google drive up innovation through Motorola, forcing its partners to keep pace which would mean that Apple, HP, Microsoft, Nokia and everybody else would also have to accelerate innovation?

Or, does this kill Google? Is this too big a bet on a company that has been more or less failing since the Razr became outdated (regardless of the nominal success of the Droid series)?

Let us know in the comments what you think about the answers to these or any other questions surrounding Google's bid to protect the ecosystem, increase its bottom line and carve a significant niche for itself in the future of mobile.

The transcript below provides the highlights from the conference call that Google and Motorola held this morning after the announcement. Questions from analysts and financial companies have been stripped so as to show the answers to pertinent issues from Google and Motorola.

Patents, Partners & Capitalistic Greed: Factors That Led Google to Buy Motorola

Analysts: Android Development in a Less Open World After Google + Motorola

Larry Page - Google CEO

Opening Remarks

I'm very excited to announce that we have entered into an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility this morning, an agreement that has been unanimously approved by both Boards. I believe the combination of the two companies is going to create tremendous shareholder value, drive great user experiences and accelerate innovation.

In May 2005 I met Andy Rubin for the first time. Andy had a crazy vision for the mobile industry. He wanted to align the standards across the mobile industry and the Internet. Andy felt that it was inefficient for each hardware manufacturer to have developed software constantly. Andy had a vision for an open-source platform that would accelerate the pace of innovation in the industry and deliver compelling user experiences.

That was just six years ago and Android is now one of the leading platforms in the industry. Andy has grown tremendously -- or Android, I should say, has grown tremendously since its launch in November of 2007. More than 150 million Android devices have been activated worldwide through a network of 39 manufacturers, 231 carriers in 123 countries. And there's more than 550,000 Android devices are lit up every day, that's just amazing progress.

Turning our attention to Motorola Mobility, they have an amazing track record of over 80 years of innovation in communications technology and the development of intellectual property, which helped drive the remarkable revolution in mobile computing we are all enjoying today.

Motorola's innovation in the mobile space has led to a number of industry milestones, including the introduction of the world's first portable cell phone nearly 30 years ago and the StarTAC, the smallest and lightest phone on earth at the time of the launch.

Not long after the launch after Android Motorola Mobility had a new CEO and he got together with Andy and they shared a vision for the mobile industry. Sanjay made a big bet; he bet big on Android as the sole operating system across all of Motorola's smartphone and tablet devices. That bet has seen him transform Motorola Mobility into one of the leading Android smartphone developers in the world.

It's no secret that Web usage is increasingly shifting to mobile devices, a trend I expect to continue. With mobility continuing to take center stage in the computing revolution, the combination with Motorola is an extremely important event in Google's continuing evolution that will drive a lot of improvements in our ability to deliver great user experiences.

Motorola Mobility has a great team with experience in developing solutions for mobile computing and for the home devices market. I'm impressed by the transformation of Motorola Mobility that the team there has initiated. I think they have an exciting product roadmap, a strong vision for the future and are poised for growth.

I think there's an opportunity to accelerate innovation in the home business by working together with the cable and telco industry as we go through a transition to Internet protocol. Motorola also has a strong patent portfolio which will help protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

Many hardware partners have contributed to Android's success and we look forward to continuing our work with all of them on an equal basis to deliver outstanding user experiences. We built Android as an open-source platform and it will stay that way. We've committed to that since the formation of the Open Handset Alliance nearly four years ago. Our plan is that Motorola will remain a licensee of Android.

Having spoken to some of the key partners of the Android ecosystem, they share our enthusiasm for this combination. I'm really excited about the acquisition and the possibilities it opens up for the Android ecosystem. My intention is to work closely with the Motorola teams and let Sanjay and his management team drive the business, that way we can supercharge both the Android ecosystem as well as the Motorola business.

David Drummond - Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer

On Patents

We've been saying for some time that we intend to protect the Android ecosystem; it's under threat from some companies who are looking to use patents (technical difficulty).

And so I think while I'm not prepared to talk about specific strategies, we think that combining with Motorola and having that kind of a patent portfolio, which Sanjay can talk about in a moment, to protect the ecosystem is a good thing.

Sanjay Jha - Motorola Mobility Chairman & CEO

On Patents

Thanks, David. Just talking about the patent portfolio that we have here at Motorola Mobility, we have over 17,000 issued patents worldwide, we have on top of that over 7,500 patent applications in process. We have tremendous strength not only in wireless standards but also wireless non-essential patents which are the patents which are required to deliver competitive products in the marketplace. And as a result of the combination of these patents we believe we'll be able to provide much better support to the businesses at Motorola Mobility as well as support the Android ecosystem.

Andy Rubin - Google Senior Vice President of Mobile (Android Founder)

On Ecosystem

I spoke yesterday to I think it was the top five Android licensees and they all showed very enthusiastic support for the deal. Android obviously was born as an open platform; it doesn't make sense for it to be a single OEM. We want to go as wide as possible and obviously all of our existing OEM partners help make it what it is today.

Larry Page

On Ecosystem

I'm really excited about this deal and I think while there are competencies there that aren't core to us so, we're also -- as I mentioned, we're operating -- we'll plan to operate Motorola Mobility as a separate business so that they have competency there.

And I'm really excited about protecting and supporting the Android ecosystem. And I think that their patent on Android two and a half years ago has really paid off and there's evidence from their success in the smartphone space.

And we really believe that Motorola Mobility has tremendous opportunity for growth and will really create a lot of value in the future.

And we really believe in the plans of the Motorola team, Sanjay and their vision for the future and really expect them to be successful. So I think this is a really unique opportunity and one that I'm tremendously excited about.

David Drummond

On Ecosystem

Sure, this is David. Look, I think that we've seen some very aggressive licensing demands in the Android ecosystem and we think this is a result of having the patent portfolio we'll be able to make sure that Android remains open and vibrant and the kind of platform that lots of companies can (technical difficulty).

Andy Rubin

On Motorola and Ecosystem

Thank you. Look, I mean, Motorola existed as one of the really, really early licensees of Android, they were a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance. After this transaction nothing changes, they're going to be a separate business and it's business as usual for Android. So I see it as basically protecting the ecosystem and extending it as well.

David Drummond

On Regulatory Concerns

Sure, this is David. On the first question, this is a transaction obviously given its size that will require regulatory approval and a number -- certainly in the United States, certainly in Europe and possibly some other jurisdictions.

We're quite confident that this will be approved. We believe very strongly this is a pro-competitive transaction and there are lots of reasons for that. But a couple of them -- Android has clearly added competition, innovation, increased user choice. We think that protecting that ecosystem is pro-competitive almost by definition.

This is not a horizontal transaction. Google has not materially been in the handset business, so we think there are -- so this certainly doesn't draw those kinds of concerns and we certainly think this is a very competitive transaction.

In terms of the -- you mentioned terms of the agreement. I think we'll be filing the agreement between Motorola and Google's public filings. We'll have the details of the agreement in those filings and those will be forthcoming shortly.

Andy Rubin

On Nexus Device Strategy and Ecosystem

Sure, and to add to Larry's points, we have this strategy where we have the Nexus program and we have this lead device strategy.

That strategy has worked quite well to help focus the team. What we do is we select each -- around Christmas time of each year we select a manufacturer that we work very closely with to release a device in that time frame.

That includes also semiconductor companies and all the components that go in the device. And essentially the teams huddle together in one building, they jointly work on these development efforts, they go on for 12 -- nine to 12 months and ultimately at the holiday season or right before it devices pop out that are based on the this effort.

We don't expect that to change at all. The acquisition is going to be run as a separate business; they will be part of that bidding process and part of that lead development process. And obviously Android remains open to other partners to use as they are today.

David Drummond

On Patent Defending

I think we've said for some time that we need to build our patent portfolio to make sure that Android and other businesses can be successful. So we will continue to do that.

Larry Page

Closing Remarks

Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Patrick. I think one thing I'd say is that we are really excited about this whole business and working with the Motorola team and all the employees and all the hard work there that's gone on over the years. And we at Google are very excited about this and I think the Motorola Mobility folks are as well and there's tremendous opportunity here.

Android is growing like crazy; we think that will benefit all partners in the Android ecosystem including Motorola. And we're very excited about those opportunities going forward. It really allows us to supercharge the whole Android ecosystem.

They made a great bet on Android that was really successful and that's made them the leading Android smartphone maker and we really believe that Motorola Mobility is poised for tremendous growth. And furthermore I'd say that the leading -- they're a leading home devices maker, that's also a big opportunity. And we're working with them and the industry to really accelerate innovation.

So with that I want to thank everyone for joining us on such short notice and thank all of the employees at Motorola Mobility and at Google for all of their hard work and for all of you for spending time with us this morning.

It makes absolute sense for Google to buy Motorola. The last couple of weeks have seen Google take significant body blows to its Android vertical. First they lose the Nortel patents to Apple and Microsoft (among others) and then Apple comes out with its second quarter earnings statement to reveal that it now has $76 billion in the bank and making more than $10 billion in profit every quarter. Most of that is from iOS. Android is not making that kind of money for Google and the search giant has to be feeling that it missed an opportunity, especially considering that Apple only has 18.2% of the worldwide smartphone market and Android has 43.4%. How will Google's addition of Motorola shake up the industry?

Analysts: Android Development in a Less Open World After Google + Motorola

Google: Buying Motorola is "Pro-Competitive" [Transcript]

In a press release, Google's CEO Larry Page, said, "Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers."

What Page really means is, "I can't believe how much money Apple is making. We need to get into the handset business now. We have always liked Motorola and since HTC and Samsung are kicking their butt, they come relatively cheap. No better time than the present to swoop in."

Motorola has been a preferred Android vendor for Google since Day 1. The original Droid phone was from Motorola and the first Honeycomb tablet was the Motorola Xoom. Motorola only sold 10.2 million devices in the second quarter and not all of those were smartphones. Motorola, a once-proud company that dominated the mobile space in the years leading up to the Era of the Smartphone (remember the Razr?).

Regulators Cannot Block This One Since Apple Is So Big

The deal is subject to regulatory approval in both the United States and the European Union. Yet, unlike many of Google's acquisitions in recent years, this one should go through relatively quickly. That is because of what Apple has done to the ecosystem. There is no way that regulators can look at what Google makes from Android, the worldwide smartphone market and the juggernaut that Apple has become and say that Google's acquisition of Motorola is in any way anti-competitive. It is a necessary move by Google to keep pace with its biggest competitor in the mobile realm.

Yet, that is excluding the Android ecosystem itself. If Android is "open" (and many people doubt how open it actually is, even if it is licensed for free), then what is going to happen with Samsung and HTC? Do they still get preferential treatment, such as the ability to release the Nexus line of Android phones which are considered the developers' build and the flagship of the operating system? Will they be allowed to use their own value-added products and skins on top of Android? What about LG, ZTE and Huawei that are making modest, if decent, livings off of Android? In the short term it is hard to speculate on how Google's acquisition of Motorola will change the very large and complex dynamic of the Android ecosystem, but it is hard to imagine that Android would be more "open."

How Does This Affect The Ecosystem?

Then again, nothing could change. Google could just start creating new devices through Motorola and HTC and Samsung remain strong and healthy competitors like nothing has changed (except for a likely inevitable rise in Motorola sales cutting into HTC/Samsung profits). Though, in the long term, what if Google (purposely or not) ends up driving HTC and Samsung out of the Android market in straight towards Windows Phone 7? Or maybe even to join the MeeGo project, which is still alive even without Nokia.

Android lovers should be excited that Google now has Motorola under its thumb. There should be more and better Android devices coming to market. Google lovers should be happy because it means that Google is defending itself in the patent wars and should raise the bottom line of the company. Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and the Android ecosystem should be wary because Google now has the capability of completing disrupting the balance of the environment in the same way that Apple has.

Do you think that Google's acquisition of Motorola is a good thing for mobile competition or a reactionary, anti-competitive move by Mountain View? Let us know in the comments.

Does this decidedly uncompetitive price point spell doom for one of the most popular gadgets from this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011)? Did the Xoom just go from great Android tablet hope to also-ran?

The news comes by way of the blog Engadget, which uncovered evidence of a Feb. 24 launch for the Motorola Xoom at Best Buy by way of a leaked advertisement. To be fair, there's no way to verify the ad is legit at this point, but Engadget says that the price agrees with some of the earlier leaks about the tablet, supposedly from Verizon's own internal systems.

The reason this pricing leak is such a big deal is not only because of Xoom's pre-launch popularity, but also the fact that it is the first tablet to run Google Android 3.0, the tablet-optimized version of the Android mobile operating system, which already powers a number of popular smartphones like the Motorola Droid, the Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Evo and dozens of others.

With Android 3.0, code-named "Honeycomb," Google introduced several user interface changes to the OS, transforming it into an exciting and interesting alternative to Apple's iPad and iPhone operating system called iOS. In Honeycomb, there are 3D homescreen widgets, a revamped multitasking interface involving a launchable panel of recent apps, built-in video chat from Google's GTalk, improvements to notifications and much more.

After January's CES 2011 event, the Xoom had even won accolades from several high-profile tech outlets including CNET, PCMag, Engadget, Gizmodo, BGR, LaptopMag, PopSci, Popular Mechanics and others - it was the tablet that "won" CES.

iPad Competition? Not at This Price Point

But at $800, Xoom's launch may not go as well as some had hoped. In addition to the hefty price tag, those who just want to use the tablet as a Wi-Fi device still have to pay for a one-month data subscription with Verizon before they can even activate the Wi-Fi feature.  In comparison, Apple sells the Wi-Fi only iPad for $499, no subscription required. And Apple may be about to launch the iPad 2, according to the Internet rumor mill. Who knows what new price points Apple will reveal at that time?

On the flip side, there's a bit of hope left for Xoom zealots: the ad, as of yet, has not been verified, and there's still the possibility that this is just some sort of Best Buy/Verizon promotion. A less expensive Wi-Fi only Xoom could be sold elsewhere...maybe.

Motorola's Xoom website went live last night, coinciding with the airing of its Super Bowl commercial. The commercial touts the tablet as a breath of fresh air in world where pod-people wearing white earbuds are the norm. Unfortunately, at $800 the tablet could end up as representative of the exclusive, expensive and elitist toys collected by tech's early adopters - ironically, the same image Apple has fought off for years. Meanwhile, the iPad becomes the tablet computer of the everyday man, woman or child.

The first Motorola devices with Skyhook's location services as the default will ship later this year. According to Skyhook, developers won't have to make any changes to their Android apps to work with Skyhook's location engine. Motorola will simply replace Google's libraries with Skyhook's Core Location services.

As location becomes a more important part of a growing array of mobile apps, being able to quickly determine a phone's location even when inside and without a line of sight to the nearest GPS satellites becomes a necessity for developers. Skyhook, which launched in 2003, pioneered this system of using Wi-Fi access points to determine a device's location. Clearly, the engineers at Motorola felt that Skyhook's solution is currently superior to Google's services.

Over the last few months, a number of the Android developers we talked to voiced frustration with the quality of Google's location services on Android. Indeed, some of the most popular location-based applications on Android like ShopSavvy and Flixster already use Skyhook's Android libraries instead of Google's built-in services.

What About Nokia, Palm, Motorola, and Rim?

While Nokia devices were responsible for just over 62% of all smartphone traffic worldwide, none of Nokia's smartphones ranked in the top 20 in the U.S. Palm's Centro, on the other hand, looks like a major boon for the company, as it is only trumped by the Blackberry Pearl when it comes to traffic volume.

Motorola, which does not have a single smartphone ranked in the top 20, still dominates the mobile traffic rankings with its RAZR V3. which was responsible for 3.7% of all mobile Internet use worldwide in August. The iPhone was the 17th most used phone on the mobile web and generated 1% of all worldwide traffic, up from 0.6% in July.

The iPhone is clearly growing quickly in the U.S. and now that Apple seems to have gotten its supply chain under control, chances are that it will continue on this track. However, it is also important to point out that, in the overall market, Apple is still only a small player. Most users, according to AdMob, are still accessing the mobile web on a RAZR.

Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate announced a joint venture to create a new premium TV channel and VOD service, which will be rolled out in the fall of 2009. The project will include a strong online component, according to Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman: “It will also meet the needs of varying distributors and take advantage of online distribution…innovative both in presenting the content and in distributing it.”

A new report surfaced this week on Sony's forthcoming movie download service for the PlayStation 3. Not much is yet known, except that negotiations with Hollywood studios are taking place — no word on pricing or if the movies and TV shows are for rent or purchase. One tantalizing tidbit, however, is being floated about: “Unlike closed networks such as Apple’s, Sony plans to embrace open standards that would make its offering compatible with a range of computers and hand-held devices, including the PlayStation Portable,” according to the LA Times.

Lastly, Motorola is rumored to be planning movie download service for its mobile devices. This is from a company that reported a $1.2 billion operating loss last year, and is considering splitting off or selling its handset division. Our advice: Worry about getting cool new phones on the market to compete with Nokia, Apple, Samsung, LG, and the highly-anticipated Google-powered Android phones. Otherwise, Motorola has bigger problems than the latest Hollywood releases.