If so, that would be a win for Google, which paid an eye-opening $12.5 billion for Motorola, minus $2.4 billion from selling off the settop box division. Although part of the reason for the acquisition was Motorola's patents, it has since become clear that Google is counting on Motorola at the very least to advance the state of the art in mobile devices. Aside from its Android mobile software that powers this and many other phones, the Moto X is its biggest bet yet that it can provide a mainstream mobile technology platform to keep its services--and its ads --in front of as many consumers as possible.