The corporate marriage between search giant and Android developer Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and former mobile phone leader Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (NYSE: MMI) closed is now official.

Google confirmed that that the acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings has closed, with Google acquiring MMI for $40.00 per share in cash.

Now that Motorola is run by Google, what's next for Android?

A press release by Google said that the acquisition will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. The release emphasized though that Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Google Execs.

Sanjay Jha, who revived Motorola's Mobile Devices business and led the company through this acquisition, has stepped down as CEO, although he will continue to work with Google to help ensure a smooth transition. Dennis Woodside, who has overseen integration planning for the acquisition and previously served as President of Google's Americas region, has become CEO of Motorola Mobility.

Dennis Woodside has hired a small number of leaders who will immediately join Motorola's executive team, including Regina Dugan (former Director of DARPA), Mark Randall (former supply chain VP at Amazon and previously at Nokia), Vanessa Wittman (former CFO of Marsh & McLennan), Scott Sullivan (former head of HR at Visa and NVIDIA), and Gary Briggs (former Google VP of Consumer Marketing). In addition to these new leaders, many members of Motorola Mobility's team will continue in their current roles: Iqbal Arshad (Product Development), Marshall Brown (Chief of Staff), Fei Liu (Mass Market Products), Dan Moloney (Home), Scott Offer (General Counsel), Mark Shockley (Sales), Mahesh Veerina (Software & Enterprise) and Jim Wicks (Consumer Experience Design).

Google-Made Mobile Devices

The device-maker launched last year the Droid RAZR, which was then thinnest smartphone with an eye-popping 7.1 mm depth. While the iPhone 4S has been plagued by battery life issues, a variant of the RAZR, the Droid RAZR MAXX, is able to offer up to 21 hours of continuous talk time due to its 3,300 mAh battery. The Droid RAZR MAXX is already available in most countries.

Now Motorola is gearing up to launch the Droid RAZR HD. The Droid RAZR HD will offer the best of what the RAZR line is known for: a slim design, massive battery, a large 4.7-inch 720p display, a 13 mp camera, and powerful processor. It will also run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and, like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, won't have physical buttons.

Google used to focus on software by providing Android to its partners. But with the acquisition of Motorola, Google now becomes a device-maker.

While Google has assured that the Android will continue to be open source, and thus available to other smartphone makers, questions remain as to how Google will beef up its newly owned Motorola when the Android platform is also being 'freely' made available to Motorola's rivals. Aside from Motorola, other firms like Samsung Electronics, HTC, and LG Electronics Inc. are part of the "open handset alliance" and have been using the Android for their smartphone and tablet devices.

Motorola won't be Google's first venture into hardware. Google, in cooperation with its Android partners, has produced the Nexus series of Android smartphones. In 2010, the Nexus One, which was manufactured by HTC, and the Nexus S, made by Samsung, were released. In November 2011, Google and Samsung launched the Galaxy Nexus. The Galaxy Nexus has been a commercial success, with 1.7 million unit sales in a just more than a month.

There have been talks that Samsung is co-developing a 7-inch tablet with Asus.

Patent Wars

When Google last year lost in the bidding for 6,000 patents of defunct telecommunications firm Nortel Networks, Google complained that the winning bidders were planning to use the patents to block Google and other users of the Android platform from bringing new products to market.

After all, entities like iPhone maker Apple Inc., Blackberry vendor Research in Motion Ltd. and operating systems giant Microsoft Corp., grouped together and came up with $4.5 billion (over $1 billion more than Google's final offer) to stop Google from owning those patents. Those entities are not using Google's Android operating system.

While the Android platform has emerged as the top operating system for smartphones -- now taking more than 40% of the market -- it has been on the defensive side in patent litigation. Google has been sued by Oracle, and Android users like Samsung, Motorola, and HTC have been targeted by Apple in suits.

While Motorola is not even among the top five smartphone vendors this year, it used be one of the largest cell phone makers. Motorola has more than 17,000 patents on phone technology.