'Google will not favour Motorola'

The Wall Street Journal reports. The deal is expected to close within days or weeks.

Speaking at a press conference at Mobile World Congress, an annual conference in Barcelona, Andy Rubin said he was “painfully aware” of the questions surrounding whether Google might favour Motorola by giving it early releases of Android software ahead of other manufacturers such as HTC or Samsung, or otherwise will help Motorola to build the best Android-powered devices on the market.

Google's acquisition of Motorola has been approved by regulators, but has not officially closed. Bloomberg reported last week that Google will replace Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha with Google advertising executive Dennis Woodside Fierce Wireless says.

Analysts and others have persistently raised concerns that Google may use Motorola to compete more directly with other Android licensees.

Rubin brushed aside those concerns and said the open nature of Android makes it "physically difficult for me to advantage somebody". Rubin also noted that Motorola's relatively small size compared with other Android players meant it would be difficult for Google to use Motorola to dominate other licensees.

"Even if I was completely insane, it wouldn't make any sense for me to think that we could get Motorola to be 90-plus-percent market share," given the huge field of Android vendors, he said. "It just isn't going to happen."