Google have announced plans to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, in a move which will enable Google to become a mobile manufacturer, in direct competiion with Apple and RIM. Once finalised, the deal will see Google manufacturing it's own mobile devices to run it's own Android software on - similar to the way that Apple and Blackberry operate. This could see further pressure on Blackberry which will be squeezed between the other two giants with pressure already high on it's mobile platform. there have been rumours that Microsoft could be looking at taking over RIM or at least working in partnership to compete against Google and Apple.

At the minute, Microsoft is in the process of suing Motorola against patent infringements in a bitter legal battle. If Google buy Motorola, then effectively, it is buying itself a lawsuit.

Another side effect of the buyout is that it will reduce the number of manufacturers willing to use Android as their operating system. If the software company also sell hardward that it runs on, then this means that third party manufacturers will be competing against it's own software supplier, and will likely be left with having to use older versions of android whereas Google will be able to take advantage of the newest versions as soon at they are released. This is bad news for the market, and the general opinion is that Google must try to keep Android open source if it is to effectively compete against iOS.