Last May,gate city bank student loans

Google

bought gadgetmaker

Motorola

for $12 billion.

When Google bought the company, Google said publicly that it was doing so for Motorola's patents – a defense against Apple, which has gotten lawsuit-happy of the past couple years.

But the other secret reason Google bought Motorola was so that it could design, build, and sell smartphones the way Apple does to great (astounding!) profit.

At a meeting with other Google executives last fall, Android boss

Andy Rubin

also said that Motorola was a hedge against

Samsung

getting too big and powerful.

So far, this secret plan isn't working out too well.

At a conference with investors yesterday, Google CFO Patrick Pitchette said that not even the next generation of products coming out of Motorola are up to Google's standards.

The Verge reported:

If you were hoping to see a revelatory smartphone from Motorola in the near future, you might want to tone down those expectations. Google's Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President

Patrick Pichette

today said that products in Motorola's pipeline are "not really to the standards that what Google would say is wow — innovative, transformative." The surprisingly honest admission came during Pichette's session at the

Morgan Stanley

Technology Conference.

When questioned on where things stand with Motorola at the moment, Pichette didn't mince words. "We've inherited 18 months of pipeline that we actually have to drain right now, while we're actually building the next wave of innovation and product lines," he said. Google executives have mentioned these prior commitments in the past, and Pitchette's comments suggest we've yet to reach the pipeline's end. "We have to go through this transition. These are not easy transitions."

It's just gossip so far, but we're hearing doubts about the wisdom of the Motorola buy are actually growing inside the Googleplex, too.

Last night, an industry source chatty with Google execs told us that most of them view the Motorola buy as a bust – though they'd never say it to CEO

Larry Page

's face.

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