Google Planning Moto-Powered Android iPhone Attack Tip Insiders

Google is planning to directly challenge Apple with an in-house smartphone and tablet business built on Motorola Mobility's manufacturing heft, insiders claim, evolving the Nexus program into a true, own-branded range of Android hardware. Although it originally saw Motorola as a patent source, so two sources tell Business Insider, Google "has come to realize that it wants to follow Apple's lead when it comes to smartphone and tablet computer development." However, it faces growing resentment from Android OEMs.

According to one executive who supposedly met with an Android manufacturers, either Samsung or HTC – and to whom the scale of Google's intent with Motorola Mobility is apparently dawning, to their collective fury – the meeting ended with "anger and dismay" over the search giant's schemes. Their hope, apparently, is to band together and force Google to back down.

That has supposedly already been done by set-top box manufacturers, which reportedly pressured Google into abandoning fledgling plans to use Motorola Mobility's existing cable TV box arm to renew Google TV. When existing players in the industry found out, so BI's sources say, "executives banded together, called Google and threatened war unless Google agreed to back down and sell the cable-top business as soon as possible." That is, in fact, expected to happen once the deal closes.

Unfortunately for the smartphone and tablet OEMs currently heavily invested in Android, the consensus among insiders is reportedly that they've left it too late to mount any sort of realistic defense to Google's schemes. Despite Android's Andy Rubin saying previously that there would be a "firewall" between Google and Motorola and that the company would not be a lock-in for future Nexus devices, more recent rumors have suggested Google intends to make "substantial investment" and take a more hands-on approach.