• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 15, 2011

Opposition against Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility began to surface Monday morning shortly after the company announced its intentions. Levi & Korsinsky will investigate the Board of Directors of Motorola Mobility Holdings "for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with the sale of the company to Google," according to a press release. 

The investigation questions whether the board "breached their fiduciary duties" to stockholders by failing to "adequately" shop the company before entering into this transaction, and whether Google is underpaying for Motorola Mobility shares. The release notes that one analyst set a price target for Motorola Mobility stock at $42.00 per share. According to some calculations, the selling price of about $12.5 billion puts the stock offer per share at about $40.

Beyond mobile phones and media tablets, ABI Research notes that Motorola Mobility has a "healthy business" in the digital home, namely broadband cable modems and set-top boxes. With a strategy to promote "TV everywhere," Google could expand on Motorola's movement into any mobile device and gain a "serious" foothold in content delivery to the home.

In a research note to investors, Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster explain the core reason for the acquisition was to acquire patents around mobile devices to protect Android from the myriad lawsuits that have embroiled it over the past year, including suits from Oracle, Microsoft, and Apple. The acquisition will allow Google to better protect the Android ecosystem from legal attacks, without dramatically changing the adoption curve of Android devices, he wrote.

Motorola gives Google the technology to better compete in the digital living room on devices such as set-top boxes. Google TV failed to gain traction and acceptance among consumers, but Motorola's expertise should help Google improve its offerings in connected TVs.

"Apple is moving toward the launch of a connected HDTV in the next few years," Munster wrote. "And we see Google's move today raising Apple's incentive to deliver a solution for the digital living room that moves beyond the current Apple TV set-top box and makes it more likely that Apple will deliver a TV."