Google has flexed its financial muscles and gone head-to-head with Apple, by purchasing Motorola Mobility – in cash – for $12.5bn.

Google CEO Larry Page believes that the acquisition of the US smartphone company will “supercharge the Android ecosystem”.

It was in 2008 that Motorola adopted Google’s Android as its sole operating system across all of its smartphone devices, a move that put the company well in line with the operating system.

In fact, Page went on to say: “Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere.”

But where does the line between real competition and the phone wars begin and end? Google claims that companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. It said that the US Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Google believes the purchase of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable it (Google) to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

We have seen a number of spats in the recent times, with Apple suing Samsung, claiming that it had lifted from its flagship iPhone device, in its new tablet phone. In an ever increasingly competitive bubble, one might look at the deal in terms of Google trying to out-muscle Apple. But on the flipside, one might also say that Google is merely trying to defend its turf and grow into the market. Whatever the case may be, one is sure that with Motorola’s specialist knowledge, it will result in a better choice for customers who might not be into the Apple format.

It seems that while the rest of the world tries to come to terms with the financial crisis which is gripping all business, our thirst for the mobile phone and its new big-brother, the smartphone, is making a pretty penny for all companies involved. What we, as customers and consumers want to see, is that competition being turned into better deals to choose from.