Google Acquires Motrola: Whats Next?

Well the news is pretty much old now that Google is acquiring Motorola. Big deal, yeah that's a big deal. But it was expected. 

Since the arrival of rivals like Facebook, the search giant is expanding its business horizon to other fields. It has been a long time when Google introduced Android, the once very celebrated 'open source' mobile operating system. I wondered at the time, how Google is going to monetize Android. Then we saw things like Android Market and other products based on Android which are money making machines for Google (not to mention mobile adds from Google on Android based gadgets).

But Android was not going well. Microsoft as always, jumped in the way and they started to ask the mobile phone manufacturers to pay on each sold device as they thought Android was infringing their copy rights and patents. This was not the case only. Apparently Apple, MS and other big dudes tried to undercut Google by buying patents from other companies. As Google accused them of being unfair. Well, this is a long story as MS clarified the statement and bla bla bla. The point here to mention is that Google was not having a solid ground regarding Android. The hardware manufacturers i.e. the smart phone makers were having trouble with legal status of Android, they had to pay MS etc on each device they sold and Google was unable to help them in this regard. Google was lacking mobile patents to support its claims in mobile market. And the biggest dispute was Oracle sued Google over Android. Folks can you imagine what a mess was created around Google and Android? And to add to the fire even Motorola was going to start war with other Android phone manufacturers over patent issues, see yourself.

So you can see the idea was good: create a mobile OS and promote it, earn money through selling Apps, Games, Adds, Services. But the mess which was created as a bi-product was creating serious hindrances for the search giant. And now the answer comes. Google is now acquiring Motorola. Possible outcomes? Well it is too early to say rather speculate about this but this is for sure that

• Android is going to be an official OS with a phone manufacturer behind it.
• Android is going to have patent support owned by Motorola.
• Apple and Microsoft are not going to like it.
• Google is going to have more focus on Tablets which will not be liked by Apple, HP and other Tab makers.
• Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is going to have tough time. Perhaps they will try to acquire already troubled old mobile maker Nokia, who is in deal with them to make Windows Phone 7 based smart phones.
• And last but not the least, the game is on. Other rivals will not sit calmly and watch Google grow. Its going to be hot out their folks, Wait and watch the battle of giants.

Qt Gets Multitouch Support

Qt is one of the very first things I encountered in Linux and Open Source world. I was very fond of KDE 3.x.x and the mother of KDE was Qt, a GUI tool kit which was used to develop KDE and its applications. I always liked the light white and blue interface of KDE as compared to brownish one of Gnome. Then after the release of the adventurous KDE 4, I had to move to a stable desktop environment, Gnome. But KDE is still my love. I always try to use KDE whenever possible. Actually once I tried to develop for KDE as well, of course through Qt. I was looking for some way to develop C# applications using Qt, but since then I am unable to get it done. There is a way (Qyoto) to build applications using Qt and C# but this is not for beginners. A person like me would like to have a GUI designer as there is one in Mono Develop for GTK#, and a very good easy to use IDE to write the applications, and also the documentation to get help. But all these things are still not available in case of Qyoto. It is a good potential project, but still it is not usable for persons like me.
So that was the history of my love regarding Qt and KDE Qt was bought by Nokia a few years back and now it is being developed by Nokia in their own way, to make it fit for smarphones and other such devices. Qt was once dual licensed but now it is released under LGPL and code can be accessed more easily. The news which let me write this post was this one actually. Qt gets multitouch support, means it is now more easy to develop applications for hand held devices. Additionally Qt's software model would be changed to a more modular nature in coming days.

HP Buys Palm

Ohh, my goodness HP Buys Palm. Ohh, what a hot topic it is. The whole world is going mad to tweat it, share it and talk about it, HP just announced to acquire Palm for 1.2 billion dollars. That's great man, really great. But let me ask one thing, DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS PALM?
Ops, if you don't know let us try to know what is Palm, or more specifically Palm OS :-).
Palm OS is a mobile operating system which was introduced in mid 90s and since then it is being used on mobile and hand held devices like PDAs. Palm was sold and purchased by several other companies in the past also. Palm Inc. was suffering these days so HP came to rescue them. Now they would be a sub part of HP and a new addition to HP's product line.
What next? Well next would be a new player in the smart phone market. As Nokia enhancing its business capabilities buy acquiring various software and hardware related companies, Google has entered into the market by introducing Android and NexusOne, Apple is a big stack holder as an iPhone producer, Microsoft is already producing Windows Mobile OS so why not HP? HP will enter into the market with the experience and goodwill of Palm and its products and both will get benefits. You may hear in a few days that Palm OS or its products are open sourced, HP is going to introduce a new smartphone and things like that. So next days are going to be really interesting regarding the smarphone market.