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In giving the thumbs-up to Google‘s acquisition of Motorola, regulators in China stipulated that Google must make
Android free and open for five years, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed with CNET today.

The stipulation would seem to be designed to keep Google from denying Motorola’s handset competitors access to the mobile operating system, or from giving Motorola an advantage of some sort — such as integration between its handsets and Android that’s tighter than connections between rival phones and the OS.

From the beginning, Google has taken an open approach with Android, making it free and available to any hardware manufacturer — a strategy that’s helped to quickly make Android the No. 1 mobile OS globally.

“Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing our work with all of them on an equal basis to deliver outstanding user experiences,” Google CEO Larry Page said during a conference call last August, at the time the intended acquisition was announced. “We built Android as an open-source platform and it will stay that way.”

Still, despite the offering of such olive branches, and despite Android’s great success as an open OS, Motorola rivals may well have been nervous. “Any way (Google) tries to couch this, there’s no doubt Motorola is the most favored player,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg told CNET’s Roger Cheng in August. “If I’m a third-party vendor, I have some real concerns here.”

That’s in part because it could have at least crossed Google‘s mind to integrate its software and services more tightly with the Motorola hardware, following Apple’s end-to-end approach with its own hardware and services.

Apple uses the sale of its iPhones and iPads to drive sales of iTunes, the App store, iCloud, and other offerings. Google, of course, has its own services — Google Drive, Google+, and so on — and a Google-focused Android device could further push subscribers to them. Ultimately, it’s these services that are the money-makers for Google. Fragmentation of Android is another concern, and a dominant, tightly integrated Android handset might help to address that.

What, then, would rival phone makers do? There aren’t many alternatives to Android. Windows Phone might become a more attractive option, but then, Microsoft has a cozy relationship with Nokia, so it could be deja vu all over again. Here’s what CNET’s Maggie Reardon had to say back in August, in a discussion of the merger’s possible impact on consumers:

What is likely to happen is that HTC, LG, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung will remain Android partners, but they may have to find new ways to differentiate their products from Motorola’s more Google-centric hardware. This may mean that HTC offers more advancements for its Sense software, which rides on top of the Android software. And Samsung may develop more TouchWiz customizations.

For consumers this could either be a good thing or a bad thing. If executed well, it will offer consumers more variety in device capabilities as well as look and feel. But if it’s not executed well, it could just mean more fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.

Reardon also wrote that the merger would probably lead to more-advanced devices from Google, a good thing for consumers.

With the stipulation from China‘s regulators (which was reported earlier today by several media outlets), all this may have become moot. And if Google is to be believed, it may not have been an issue anyway.

A company representative told CNET today that Google‘s “stance since we agreed to acquire Motorola has not changed and we look forward to closing the deal.”

So, had it crossed Google‘s mind to tie Android tightly to Motorola handsets? We might have to wait five years to find out. And who knows what the landscape will look like then?

We have an e-mail out to Motorola for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

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Motorola Mobility has updated the Web page it uses to keep end users aware of upcoming ROM updates. It’s one of the only Android OEMs to provide such detailed information to its customers.

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The web page gives Motorola Mobility Android device owners more hope in terms of when and if their device will receive Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0, ICS). Until now, only one device, the Xoom wi-fi only tablet, has been updated to ICS, and only in the U.S. Xoom wi-fi only owners in Asia Pacific, Canada, China, EMEA, Japan and LATAM are still waiting, and according to the site, will receive ICS in Q2. Considering Q2 ends in 1 1/2 months, Motorola better get a move on.

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Six devices are scheduled to receive ICS in Q2, in fact, including the aforementioned Xoom wi-fi tablet, outside of the U.S. Also slated for a Q2 delivery of ICS are the Motorola RAZR (globally) / RAZR Maxx (U.S.), the Xoom wi-fi+3G/4G (in the U.S.), the MT917 and XT928 (both in China).

Of those, the Xoom wi-fi+3G/4G is the furthest along, as it is in the Testing Phase, which is the last phase before a new ROM becomes available. All others are listed as in the Development Phase.

In Q3, the lucky owner list expands significantly. It will include the Droid 4 (U.S.), Droid Bionic (U.S.), Motorola Xoom Family Edition (U.S.), Xoom 2 and Xoom 2 Media Edition (both Asia Pacific, EMEA, and LATAM), Atrix 4G (U.S.), Atrix 2 (Asia Pacific, LATAM, USA, and selected other markets), and the Droid XyBoard 8.2 and 10.1 tablets (U.S.).

Finally, in Q4, the Photon 4G will receive an update.

The rest of those devices that might receive an ICS update, and the word is “might” because they are in the Evaluation and Planning Phase, meaning an update has not yet been decided upon, are the Motorola Xoom wi-fi+3G (outside the U.S.), the Atrix (outside the U.S.), the Electrify (U.S.) and the Photon 4G (Japan).

Droid 3 and Droid X2 owners will surely be disappointed, as they were hoping for an ICS update but will not be receiving one. Meanwhile, some folks have been waiting for a long time as, for example, RAZR owners were told last year that the RAZR would be getting an early Q1 2012 update to ICS.

Bionic and Xoom owners were also among those who were told, right off the bat, that their devices would be receiving ICS, and except for the wi-fi Xoom, they are still waiting.

The full list, as noted above, is available here.

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