Motorola Forced To Pull Out of Germany by Apple and Microsoft

[dgstorm]

This is what it looks like when innovation is stifled completely by raging patent trolls. Motorola Mobility must now pull out of Germany for selling Android tablets and Android phones, at least for the foreseeable future. Motorola lost a patent fight brought by Apple and three brought by Microsoft in the European country this year, and was not able to get any reversals our workarounds going yet. A Munich court, just last month, said that Motorola must stop selling Android smartphones and tablets in the country. Here's a quote with a few more details,

On Wednesday, Motorola Mobility's German website showed just the Motorola Gleam which uses a proprietary OS, and two upcoming Android phones, the Motorola RAZR and Motorola RAZR HD. Those who want to buy the Android modes can register to buy them later. The tablets page is blank with no product for sale. Motorola Mobility devices are still offered by retailers although inventory can dry up if the company decides to end wholesale shipments.

According to the reports, Motorola is actively developing a software work-around to be able to eventually sell the RAZR series in Germany, but it is not fully developed yet. Interestingly, in the aftermath, Motorola's new CEO, Dennis Woodside played off the setback as if it were simply a new business strategy. Here's his statement,

"As we have previously stated Motorola Mobility is focusing on fewer mobile devices. As a result we have phased out some of our lower tier devices in Europe/Germany."-Motorola Mobility Spokeswoman

Apparently it's not just the U.S. that has a broken patent system.

Source: PhoneArena

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[Sonicaholic]

It's for the wrong reasons but I'd like to see them kicked out of the UK for lying to there customers and not supporting there products in a reasonable manner compared to there home country US! There EU sites as well as this one among others are both littered with EU customers sick of the lack of device support!