Google co-founder Larry Page is good with figures. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesGoogle's Larry Page will no doubt wish the mood music for his first major announcement as chief executive was more uplifting.
Instead, the conference call following Google's blockbuster acquisition of Motorola Mobility saw analysts line up to ask whether its largest takeover was also its most defensive.
But Page is a genius mathematician, and spending $12.5bn (£7.6bn) – in cash, no less – on more than 17,000 mobile patents (7,000 more than Nokia) must have been an appealing transaction.
The deal comes just 11 days after David Drummond, Google's legal supremo, complained publicly about Apple, Microsoft and other rivals waging a "hostile, organised campaign" against its Android software.
On Monday's conference call, Drummond was tentatively upbeat. "This is a transaction that will require regulatory approval, certainly in the US and in Europe and other countries, and we're quite confident that it will be approved," he said. "We believe it is a pro-competitive transaction. Android has clearly added competition, innovation and user choice, and we think protecting that ecosystem is pro-competitive, almost by definition."
As a future investment, Motorola Mobility's treasure chest of intellectual property make for better bargaining chips. But, as resident patents expert Florian Müller points out, they failed to deter the ongoing legal actions brought by Apple and Microsoft.
More cynical still is the suggestion Google will simply keep the patents and sell off its newly acquired smartphone manufacturing business. For all its talk of mobile being the future, Google (like Facebook) has shown little interest in making smartphones.
Horace Dediu, the former Nokia manager, notes that if Google really did want in on the hardware world then it would have bought Taiwanese giant HTC, a firm favourite of the Android brand.
And what of rival manufacturers? According to the press material, they welcome the move. According to Andy Rubin, Google's "Mr Android", execs at the big five phone makers showed "enthusiastic support" for the takeover when telephoned with the news on Sunday. But then again, all of them would be hard pushed to say any different.
Nokia shares were up 12% on early trading in New York; BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion jumped 4%; Microsoft rose 1.3% and Apple was up 1.8%. Google was down about 1%.
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