Motorola Mobility Says $12.5B Google Deal To Close Tuesday Or Wednesday. Layoffs Coming?

Google has reached the final regulatory hurdle to its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, with China approving the transaction over the weekend, and today Motorola Mobility filed an 8-K form that notes that it will close in the next two business days.

So what happens next? A “listening tour,” a source tells us, with new management visiting the whole of the operation, “seeing what everyone does, then making decisions.” One decision that may be close at hand has to do with headcount: we have heard that there will be layoffs coming imminently. At the same time, more details are emerging about the conditions that China put on the deal: they include a guarantee that Android would remain free and open source for the next five years.

Motorola’s statement today noted that the approval from the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China came on May 19, 2012, as we reported earlier.  ”As the transaction has now received all required regulatory approvals, the companies are moving to close the transaction within two business days,” it notes.

As The End Of Google Docs Draws Near, Google Asks Stragglers To Transition To Google Drive

Google always pitched Google Drive, which launched in April after a considerable period of hype, as a replacement for Google Docs. What many users didn’t realize, it seems, is that Google will indeed completely replace Google Docs with Drive later this year. While Drive is still opt-in at this time, it looks like the forced transition is coming soon, as Google has started to alert users that their Google Docs account will soon be “upgraded to Google Drive.”

What’s coming next, according to Google’s official transition documents, is an opt-out phase similar to what the company has done when it transitioned to the new Gmail interface recently. Judging from the messages that many users are now seeing in Google Docs, this phase is going to start soon.

Google’s Project Glass Concept Video

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Neil Patel, co-founder of KISSmetrics and blogger at QuickSprout.com.

You may have seen it by now…Google’s concept video about its new Project Glass. These glasses will do what your smart phone will do only without having to hold anything…you actually see your options at the side of your view.

You can get directions, send and receive texts, make calls, schedule tasks and even share your view with another person.

It’s a really exciting idea…especially if you love technology. But the actual product is easily years out from becoming a reality.

Was Google wise to release an idea so early? And should startups do the same?

Newspaper Attacks UK Government For Its ‘Closeness’ To Google

UK tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail, has decided to raise the issue of Google’s influence on the UK government, after uncovering the fact that Conservative Party ministers have held meetings with Google an average of once a month since the General Election two years ago. There have been 23 meetings between Tory ministers and Google since June 2010, with Prime Minister David Cameron meeting Google three times and George Osborne – who as Chancellor of the Exchequer is supposed to meet with business leaders – four times in two years.

The story needs to be a seen in a wider context. The Conservatives have recently come under fire for having too close a relationship to another powerful entity, News Corporation (as did the Labour party during its tenure). A huge inquiry into Press standards has in large part focused on the ties between Rupert Murdoch’s media giant and the Conservatives.