Scanning through my emails this morning on my iPhone saw multiple news articles about Google's offer to purchase Motorola Mobility at over US$17B. Then, opening my Facebook app saw multiple comments from my ex-Motorola colleagues breaking the news and their feelings on their "walls". Clicking on Safari for today's news-headlines also saw this business piece on the front webpages of BBC, CNN.

Being an ex-Motorola exployee who had been to the great Motorola museum in Schumberg, Illinois, and who witnessed how the BatWings broke wings into pieces like On-Semi, Freescale, Motorola Networks, Motorola Mobility, etc., I feel this is like finally a rest-in-peace kind of deal. I am happy and excited about this acquisition because software and hardware do need to work hand-in-hand. Motorola's cellular handset IPs have got a good refuge. Google's Andriod OS is so well-scalable that Motorola can leverage the popularity and reliability of Andriod to rebuild its reputation in tablets and handsets. Google's rich set of cloud software tools like Google Map, Google+, Gmail, Google Talk will enable the historical and good quality DSP and transceiver IPs from Motorola to compete in the handset world.

In the last 2 years, I own 3 phones: HTC Hero@Andriod 2.1, Motorola Milestone@Andriod 2.2, and and iPhone@iOS. Although iPhone is so popular on the street, a few usability functions were not implemented in software that kind of cheesed me off: conditional call-forwarding, setting of APNs during roaming to pick your data service server, and being able to selectively edit the dialled digits in case you tapped the wrong key without the need to "back-spacing"...these were the good features I found on Andriod phones, again, software. Open source community and the scalability of Andriod is Google's advantage. Motorola's echo-cancellation IPs and noise filter IPs are no doubt proven qualities for Google.

We saw how Microsoft and Nokia blended together, Apple's AppStore and iTunes enabled its stylish hardware design, and now, Motorola and Google. We have entered an interesting era. What's next? "Facebook buying Sony Ericsson?!" and one of my friends wrote on his wall? Or Linkedin buys Blackberry RIM?

All these happened because there is no hesitation in design: design of new business model in the cases above. Now, can we not have innovative electronic designs for these blended mobile platforms? Lots of opportunities ahead for our design engineers, as some say, "think out of the box". Motorola has been a legend.

I just hope Google will preserve the Motorola museum for the Galvin's family, and for the once proud Motorolans.

Eric K.H. Lee