>It's one thing to buy a company and then do layoffs to realize efficiency gains, and another to buy a company essentially for its IP and fire everybody.
Isn't that basically what Google did with Motorola?
No, not at all. Motorola Mobility was bleeding cash for years (basically since the end of life for the original Razor -- they didn't have any profitable phones again until the X & G). Yes, Google wanted their patent portfolio, but it's not like MMI was making money before the acquisition ... which was why even prior to the Google purchase Motorola had split into MMI & MSI, which is absolutely profitable selling radio gear & services.