The problem here is rather that Google chose not to participate in the company buying the patents.
What do you do after that. Leave the companies that didn't pay alone ?
There used to be a time where companies would have been doing just that. But in mobile market, there is no competition anymore, there is a very rough war. 2 market leader (Nokia, Blackberry) have basically been pushed out of the market in less than 5 years. That's like incredible speed ( I work in financial software company, it takes decades of continuous bad strategy to doom a company ). Their error of judgement was all considered minor and the correction they have done should have been more than enough to limit the losses. In addition of that, only 2 players on the market manage to make money, a lot of money.
In that climate, anything that can give you even a few months edge can be the difference between competing and becoming irrelevant.
The smartphone market is brutal - too brutal for regular competition strategies.
What do you do after that. Leave the companies that didn't pay alone ?
There used to be a time where companies would have been doing just that. But in mobile market, there is no competition anymore, there is a very rough war. 2 market leader (Nokia, Blackberry) have basically been pushed out of the market in less than 5 years. That's like incredible speed ( I work in financial software company, it takes decades of continuous bad strategy to doom a company ). Their error of judgement was all considered minor and the correction they have done should have been more than enough to limit the losses. In addition of that, only 2 players on the market manage to make money, a lot of money.
In that climate, anything that can give you even a few months edge can be the difference between competing and becoming irrelevant.
The smartphone market is brutal - too brutal for regular competition strategies.