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1. This is about patents

Probably every single article I've read about the deal has mentioned Android's patent problems, and I doubt that Google would have bought Motorola Mobility if it were simply a handset maker; it's that vast trove of patents that drew Google in. In fact, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha hinted last week that they might begin using their patent portfolio to make claims against other Android licensees, something which in retrospect turns out to have been a negotiating tactic. There's no doubt that Android is facing some very serious challenges, and buying Motorola Mobility will help Google play defense.

2. But it's also about control

Still, $12.5 billion seems like a lot to pay simply to get access to a bunch of patents (especially since having them only lessens -- but does not solve -- their IP difficulties), so either Motorola forced Google to buy the whole company just to get the patents or on some level Google just wanted to have wanted the hardware business as well.

Either way, Google is going to be making phones and is going to have to make the most of it. The good news is that when it comes to building smartphones and tablets it's clear there are some serious advantages to vertically integrating your hardware and software development. I'd guess that Google sees what Apple has been able to do with the iPhone and feels a little frustrated that they haven't been able to have more control over the phones that are getting released into the market. (Certainly one of the intentions behind the Nexus line was to prod the OEMs into pushing the envelope in terms of specs and design.)

The large number of manufacturers who have adopted Android helped them create a massive ecosystem of apps and developers that is so critical to success in mobile (it's a key challenge that any OS maker faces), so in a sense Google has already gotten a lot of what it wanted out of its original Android strategy. Now that Google has achieved that scale could they feel that the only way to truly take on Apple is to become more like them and assert more control?

3. This is a great deal for Motorola Mobility

Getting bought by Google is probably the best outcome Motorola could have hoped for given how things were going. Yes, the company's mobile business (which was split off along with some other pieces as its own company earlier this year) was brought back from the brink of disaster and is in much better shape than it was just a few years ago, but they have been struggling to hold onto market share in what is a vastly more competitive landscape. In Google they found a highly motivated buyer and who paid a premium for the company, all around this was a great deal for Motorola.

4. This is a big deal for Google as a company

Even though Motorola will be run as a separate business unit -- and separate from Android -- it's a big deal for them to be getting directly into the hardware business (not to mention how big a deal it is to be grafting on an entirely new business unit with its own huge workforce). It also signals a shift in how Google will make money. Until now Google has mainly been in the business of selling advertising. There are other ways they make money, but this is where most of their revenue comes from, and the strategy with Android has always been to give it away to manufacturers and then make money through showing ads on phones running the OS. Now Google is going to be making money from selling hardware. It's not entirely clear where all this will lead, but there is no way -- unless Google ends up just keeping the patents and spinning the rest of Motorola off to someone else -- that this won't have a huge impact on how Google thinks of itself as a company.

5. This is really going to piss off Google's partners -- but what are they going to do about it?

Even if everyone is all smiles publicly, secretly Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, and HTC are fuming. None of them want to be competing directly against the company that makes the operating system they're relying on. The problem is as much as Microsoft is going to try and bring them fully over to Windows Phone (more on that later), Android is what's driving smartphone sales for all of these guys and they can't just suddenly abandon it. Google has to somehow convince its partners that this is really about preserving Android and solving its patent problems than about getting into the hardware game, and that given the alternatives they're all better off sticking with Android. Getting under Google's patent umbrella will certainly make them all a lot more comfortable, and I doubt we will see any big OEM abandoning Android within the next couple of years, but all of them have to be thinking about a backup plan of some kind now.

6. Google's new problem: Competing with your licensees rarely works

It didn't work for Palm, and it's going to be very tough for Google to avoid the same pitfalls. There are just too many conflicts of interest to overcome, and I doubt many Android licensees would have signed up had they had any inkling that Google was going to be getting into the phone business. The Nexus line has made them a bit nervous, but they were able to mitigate some of that anxiety by picking a major partner to build it for them (as opposed to just finding some contract manufacturer in China to do it). Now they're going to be in the awkward position of having to constantly choose between what's best for Android as an ecosystem and what's best for Motorola as a phone maker. Will Motorola get earlier access to Android than other partners? It'd certainly give them an edge when it comes to getting new phones to market, which is in Google's interest as a business, but it'd also alienate its OEM partners. Buying Motorola might help solve one problem, but in the process they've created another one that might mean the beginning of the end of their original vision of Android as a shared platform for mobile devices used by hundreds of different manufacturers.

7. It's not clear how the carriers are going to react

There are some things for them to be happy about, since they absolutely want someone to act as a counterweight to Apple and its growing influence, but they also don't love that Google basically has wanted to disintermediate them for years (and actually sort of tried and failed by originally trying to sell the Nexus One directly to consumers). One thing the carriers (well, apart from Sprint) have no love for is Google Voice, and it'll be interesting to see how much Google tries to bake it into to new Motorola phones.

8. Microsoft has some choices to make

Do they follow Google and Apple along the integrated path and buy Nokia? Or do they fully commit to being a software play and use Google's purchase to try and convince Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, and HTC that they shouldn't invest so much in Android? It may be that we look back on this as the moment when Microsoft started to turn things around and Windows Phone gained some real traction. I'm absolutely certain that Microsoft execs were on the phone with their counterparts at the OEMs today making their case, but it's going to be hard to overcome the fact that Nokia is Microsoft's preferred partner for Windows Phone. If you're a phone maker concerned about playing second fiddle to Motorola with Google, you might not be all that better off playing second fiddle to Nokia with Microsoft.

9. HTC has some tough choices to make

A few years ago HTC made what turned out to be a very prescient move when they got behind Android really early on. They realized that Windows Mobile was falling apart and that whatever succeeded it wasn't going to arrive early enough to keep handset sales afloat, and so hedged their bets with Android, which has turned out to be wildly successful for them.

Now it's leaving them exposed. Unlike Samsung, which has its own in-house OS (Bada), HTC is entirely dependent on Microsoft and Google, both of which could leave the company hanging. Looking back, it's clear that HTC probably should have bought Palm when it had the chance, both for its OS (as a hedge against Google and Microsoft screwing them over) and for its patents (you may have heard that HTC has some problems of its own there). It's going to be tough for HTC to create its own OS from scratch, but given the circumstances it's possible that they'll cozy up to Intel and get behind Meego, license webOS from HP, or even something really out there like partner up with Amazon (and perhaps even some other OEMs) and fork Android.

A more likely scenario is that they'll start shopping the company for a buyer. The only problem is that pool of potential buyers isn't so huge. A merger with Dell might make sense, given how much the PC maker has struggled with mobile, but it doesn't solve the underlying OS problem. Microsoft would almost certainly prefer to buy Nokia or RIM, though I do know they've kicked the tires on HTC before. Buying HTC might help HP scale up webOS, but the price tag is probably too high and HP probably feels like it already got everything it needed with Palm. Huawei or ZTE are both growing rapidly and might be interested as a way to gain entry to US and European markets, but HTC wouldn't be a cheap buy for either.

10. Nokia is feeling good right now about not picking Android

You can debate whether Nokia made the right choice in going with Windows Phone -- rather than, say, doubling down on Meego -- but after today's news you really can't argue that they should have gone with Android.

11. No matter what happens, it's going to be a long time before we see any real changes.

It will be a while before the deal even closes - it'll need to get regulatory approval first - and once that's done it will take even longer before we see the first handsets designed and built by the combined companies hit the market.