TechCrunch:

If you’ve seen Casino Royale (the remake, not the original campy version), you’ll recall the scene where James Bond loses all his money attempting to call what he believes to be a Le Chiffre bluff. He is forced to exit the game, but then Felix Leiter, the CIA operative also in the game, tells Bond he’ll stake him since he’s clearly the stronger player. Again, that’s more or less what Apple did with this maneuver to Google’s Le Chiffre.

Great piece explaining the bidding process for Nortel’s patent portfolio, which includes over 6,000 patents spanning mobile and wireless innovation. The bidding war ultimately ended with Google as the big loser, beaten by an unlikely alliance formed by Apple, RIM, EMC, Ericsson, Sony and Microsoft.

For the average consumer, it’s easy to forget that the mobile computing industry is a fierce battle that’s not only being fought with great products, but also with plenty of backstabbings, backdoor deals and odd partnerships.

The phrase “the enemy of my enemy…” seems appropriate. Also, the poker analogy throughout the article and the James Bond references are pretty cool.