Anyone who cannot see the writing on the wall about where electronic identity is going, needs to have a look at this morning’s announcement from Google.
Google announced on Monday that it would acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the cellphone business that was split from Motorola, for $40 a share in cash, or $12.5 billion.
The offer — by far Google’s largest acquisition — represents a premium of 63 percent to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday. Motorola is a Google Android partner.
Larry Page, CEO of Google, said in a statement: “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.”
The competition to own the most important information and transaction platform of the 21st century is well underway and in spite of what I believe to be the financial service industry’s attempts to keep the telecom’s at bay e.g. the rapid rise and fall of ISIS (see AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile Developing Mobile Payment Platform and Wireless carriers cancel their plans for ISIS), they will not succeed with the Googles of the world.
It is far more likely that internet generation companies like Google and eBay, or the next generation of such, or Apple which proven leadership in the arena of human machine interaction and has such once again redefined itself to be a leading edge tech innovator, will define and own electronic identity based platforms and the hefty revenue they will generate.
Let the games begin!