By Jim O'Neill, Parks Associates Research Analyst

The question, “Is Google getting ready to shop Motorola?” isn’t a new one, but it is picking up steam.

Maybe it’s because of Google’s new fiber project in Kansas City that it seems counterintuitive for a sale to happen. After all, Google hasn’t named a vendor for the equipment and has said it’s making them itself.

Put two and two together, and the assumption has to be that, well, Google’s subsidiary, Motorola MUST be making them, right?

Nope.

A Google exec told me today that Moto isn’t making the boxes; they’re being fabricated by someone else.

That, more than any other rumor, adds just one more nail to Motorola’s coffin.

But it also raises some other questions:

1.      If not Moto, who?

2.      And, of course, why not Motorola?