Despite the huge delta in what they paid for Motorola, vs what they're reported to be selling it for, other people have pointed out that the way the deal was structured may not actually wind up making it a huge financial loss for Google.

I certainly can't think of any way to spin the way this turned out to be positive for Google, but I don't think the absolute numbers will worry them all that much.

I haven't seen anyone here mention that at the time of the acquisition, Motorola was attempting to sue all the other Android manufacturers over its patents; and it was posited that Google was basically forced to buy Motorola to keep them from poisoning the ecosystem.

I assume that not happening was probably worth more to Google than what they would up having to pay for Motorola.

Psychologically, it does help reinforce the idea that Google really doesn't know what it's doing with regards to hardware (although hey, they just paid more for Nest than potentially what they're selling Motorola for).