Motorola buys Good Technology

Motorola today said it is buying Research in Motion competitor Good Technology for an undisclosed sum, giving Motorola its own enterprise messaging portfolio to counter RIM’s success in wireless e-mail and Nokia’s own recent acquisition of Intellisync.

Motorola already has a relationship with Good, using its mobile messaging solution in its new Q business handset. But the Q also supports several other vendor’s mobile e-mail platforms, including RIM’s BlackBerry solution. By acquiring Good, Motorola may be opting to abandon its open platform approach to messaging in favor of pushing its own solution to the forefront, in effect locking its mobile messaging solution directly to the phone, much the way RIM does with BlackBerry.

Good has reported that its GoodLink solution has been adopted by 12,000 enterprises around the world, making it a hefty player in the mobile space behind RIM’s dominant position. The deal would also give Motorola a messaging alternative to that of Nokia, which bought Intellisync late last year. Nokia, however, has so far not pushed its Intellisync messaging solution over that of other vendors, supporting on its enterprise phones e-mail systems from Seven, Good and Visto as well as its own solution and BlackBerry.

Motorola said the deal is expected to close in early 2007.