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+--- Thread: Google bid some interesting numbers at the Nortel auction (/showthread.php?tid=119572)
Google bid some interesting numbers at the Nortel auction - hal - 07-02-2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/us-dealtalk-nortel-google-idUSTRE76104L20110702
frikken GEEKS!
At the auction for Nortel Networks' wireless patents this week, Google's bids were mystifying, such as $1,902,160,540 and $2,614,972,128.
Math whizzes might recognize these numbers as Brun's constant and Meissel-Mertens constant, but it puzzled many of the people involved in the auction, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation on Friday.
"Google was bidding with numbers that were not even numbers," one of the sources said.
"It became clear that they were bidding with the distance between the earth and the sun. One was the sum of a famous mathematical constant, and then when it got to $3 billion, they bid pi," the source said, adding the bid was $3.14159 billion.
"Either they were supremely confident or they were bored."
It was not clear what strategy Google was employing, whether it wanted to confuse rival bidders, intimidate them, or simply express the irreverence that is part and parcel of its corporate persona. Whatever its reasons, Google's shenanigans did not work.
Re: Google bid some interesting numbers at the Nortel auction - Spock - 07-02-2011
Mmmmmm ...... Pi.
Re: Google bid some interesting numbers at the Nortel auction - MGS_forgot_password - 07-02-2011
They were just jacking up the price like they did with the spectrum auction a few years ago, trying to punish their competitors.
Re: Google bid some interesting numbers at the Nortel auction - (vikm) - 07-02-2011
MGS_forgot_password wrote:
They were just jacking up the price like they did with the spectrum auction a few years ago, trying to punish their competitors.
I think that was probably the case and that they weren't all that serious at all about it. How'd that work out for them? Don't think anyone was punished at all. Well, certainly no one that mattered.
Re: Google bid some interesting numbers at the Nortel auction - haikuman - 07-02-2011
Dawg and Pony Show from Google including Tom Foolery *(:>*
http://seekingalpha.com/article/277610-google-loses-bid-for-nortel-s-huge-patent-portfolio
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/01/apple-microsoft-rim-google-nortel-patents/