But it is a bit telling that they didn't have an actual statement to make. I suggest the CEO's office of these companies is trying to make sense of the deal still.
How they really feel will be more apparent in statements about Windows Phone. They'll still state the party line on Android for a while, but if Samsung and HTC start openly talking about positive reception of WP devices and excitement around Mango then there's been an internal change in tune.
I thought this was common knowledge by now. The PR people write it, CEOs only give their ok.
Edit: All the statements being so similar is a testament to very shoddy PR work but it’s not all that surprising. The same PR people (well, very likely a single person) from Google who wanted to get statements from the all presidents and CEOs just called up the PR departments of all the companies and asked for statements, suggesting, along the way, the language: “Hi, this is Michael from Google. As you know we will very soon acquire Motorola and it would be very nice if we could get a short one sentence statement from your CEO about that, you know, to show your and our shareholders and customers how committed we are to the Android ecosystem. I can send you an email with an example statement to give you an idea about the length. Would that be alright?”
This is how large-scale communications works - you write your message, come up with quotes that support your message, get them OK'ed by stakeholders, and send them out. If you ever see a media release that doesn't come from a speech, and it includes quotes from anyone, you can bet they never actually said those things - someone from PR wrote them, and got them OKed to have been considered said.
Put it another way, the first time the CEOs quoted ever saw what they "said" was probably when they read this page
That’s why I was thinking that Google gave them some talking points and they got oddly similar sounding statements back and didn’t really bother changing them afterwards.
t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway right
BlackAdder> i believe i speak for all of us when i say...
BlackAdder> WRONG BTICH
BlackAdder> IM SICK OF YOU
BlackAdder> AND YOUR LAME STORIES
BlackAdder> NOBODY HERE THINKS YOURE FUNNY
BlackAdder> NOBODY HERE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR STORIES
BlackAdder> IN FACT
BlackAdder> IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOW
BlackAdder> I DON"T THINK NOBODY WOULD CARE
BlackAdder> SO WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT FAG
*** t0rbad sets mode: +b BlackAdder*!*@*.*
*** BlackAdder has been kicked my t0rbad ( )
t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway right
CRCError> right
heartless> Right.
r3v> rightWhile patents are a thorn on the side, they do not threaten the bread and butter of OEMs like even just delaying the release of source code(that the new Moto division already has from a long time prior) does.
What if their reaction was frank? Something like
"We are concerned that this acquisition is lopsided and will hurt the major OEMs since now Motorola will have very big advantages that we won't. The DoJ and EU should look at forcing Google to give the same access to Android to us as they would do to their new hardware division."
>Who's the hostage?
The fact that it was a canned PR release from Google that they echoed instead of the above shows who's the hostage.
Choose your most important point and release that only, as simply as you are able to state it.
Edit: But assuming they all mean it, this is actually fantastic. It's good to see that they aren't afraid; they don't seem themselves in a weakened position and they do desperately need the legal force that Google can provide to be on their side.