Motorola Mobility shareholders approve $12.5B Google deal

Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) $12.5 billion deal to acquire Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) is expected to close early next year, after Motorola Mobility shareholders voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve the merger.

Motorola said about 99 percent of the shares voting at a special meeting of stockholders voted to approve the merger. Stockholders participating in the vote represented about 74 percent of outstanding Motorola shares.

The deal could help Google deploy its software on Motorola set-tops deployed by pay TV providers worldwide.

"What excites me about this combination is the ability to bring a lot of the Internet learnings that Google has to our capabilities," Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha told attendees during a session at the SCTE Cable-Tec expo in Atlanta on Tuesday.

For more:
- see Motorola Mobility release

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