NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's biggest deal ever, acquiring Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc for $12.5 billion, is an attempt to buy insurance against increasingly aggressive legal attacks from rivals such as Apple Inc.
The acquisition of one of the mobile telecommunications industry's most storied names is Google co-founder Larry Page's boldest move since taking over as CEO in April, launching the Internet giant into a lower-margin manufacturing business and pitting it against many of the 38 other handset companies that now use its Android software.
