Google signs agreement with HTC

Important bit:<p>&gt; That’s why we’ve signed an agreement with HTC, a leader in consumer electronics, that will fuel even more product innovation in the years ahead. With this agreement, a team of HTC talent will join Google as part of the hardware organization. These future fellow Googlers are amazing folks we’ve already been working with closely on the Pixel smartphone line, and we&#x27;re excited to see what we can do together as one team. The deal also includes a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property.

Random things that strike me about this deal:<p>- HTC&#x27;s stock price has been going down for the past 5 years, and EPS was down sharply recently. Does this make HTC more or less viable on its own going forward?<p>- Apple finally made a VR push with the upcoming macOS High Sierra and iMac Pro—along with the HTC Vive. Google didn&#x27;t fully acquire HTC here, and HTC&#x27;s trajectory was already tied to Android, but still seems an interesting wrinkle there.<p>- Samsung continues to hedge their bets, most recently with Bixby. Really wonder if Google&#x27;s continued hardware investment will make them seek more of their own path.<p>- Why would Google acquire just a team from HTC? Seems like the oddest of acquihires yet.

So this is like an acqui-hire except that the employees don&#x27;t see any benefit from it except that they are now Google employees?<p>Meanwhile, HTC Executives pocket a huge wad of cash? Great.

TL;DR, Google doesn&#x27;t acquire HTC, they bought a team.

So confused. So in essence, Google bought a team from HTC?

&quot;It’s still early days for Google’s hardware business.&quot;<p>Why no mention of Motorola in 2011? Google bought it for $12.5B, and sold it 2014 for $3B.<p>I think it would have made the blog post better to give some explanation for why Things Are Different This Time.

HTC&#x27;s press release raises even more questions -- they claim they will continue to develop the next flagship phone?<p>&gt; HTC will continue to have best-in-class engineering talent, which is currently working on the next flagship phone, following the successful launch of the HTC U11 earlier this year. HTC will also continue to build the virtual reality ecosystem to grow its VIVE business, while investing in other next-generation technologies, including the Internet of Things, augmented reality and artificial intelligence.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.htc.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;about&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;2017&#x2F;2017-09-21-htc-google&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.htc.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;about&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;2017&#x2F;2017-09-21-htc-goo...</a>

I think this is great for HTC, HTC is really good on hardware, and are only really struggling with marketing their phones, partnering with Google is almost a no brainer

I&#x27;m very excited about google&#x27;s future plans. Anyone else feel like this is their path towards competing with apple and samsung in the long run?

So, a billion dollars for about a 100 engineers.

Google has desperately needed its own hardware for several years now.<p>This is especially apparent this year. Just to name a few things:<p>- Apple is much later to the AR game than Google, yet can push AR to ~200 million devices at the push of a button. Google has had Tango for a while now, and can only push it to a very small number of phones (compared to Apple&#x27;s)<p>- A11 bionic chip is so far ahead, it&#x27;s not even funny anymore, <i>and</i> is married to all other parts of the hardware and software. Google has nothing that&#x27;s even close to this.<p>- &quot;Kinect-in-a-phone&quot; sensor strip of iPhone X. Even if Google has the know-how, it can never provide the same features, because they don&#x27;t have their own hardware.<p>&quot;Owning the stack: The legal war to control the smartphone platform&quot; by Arstechnica remains as relevant as ever, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;tech-policy&#x2F;2011&#x2F;09&#x2F;owning-the-stack-the-legal-war-for-control-of-the-smartphone-platform&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;tech-policy&#x2F;2011&#x2F;09&#x2F;owning-the-stack...</a>

No one else hears this and thinks vertically integrated monopoly? What if Google advantages their own hardware over competitors, which in turn will decrease market competition and hurt consumers

I was really hoping they would at least take the HTC distribution and servicing channels to sell pixel phones more widely instead of just a few countries like currently.

OT, but but I find really irksome Veep-type blog posts that jump indistinguishably between what &#x27;I&#x27; did and what &#x27;we&#x27; or &#x27;our team&#x27; did, as if there&#x27;s no difference.

So is this an acquisition or a recruitment drive?

When any company gets large enough they become a repository of technical failures and an acquirer of the same.<p>Unfortunately that ultimately matters little to stock value and market share.

I think Google wants the VR (HTV Vive) team.

ads money will feed engineers - good news

I did a literal spit take when I saw this. Are they doing this for phone production or for the Vive&#x2F;VR?

Didn&#x27;t quite work out for them last time… why will this be any different than Motorola?

Good news for HTC

Is it me or do you also see another Motorola in making?

Good win-win.

more acquisitions<p>another nexus 7<p>god, i hope so.

Guaranteed in the top 10 on Google&#x27;s internal Memegen: &quot;WTF are you doing cat&quot; gif.

Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion and sold it at a discount...Google just doesn&#x27;t get user experience. Google bought so many user experience startups and yet they have nothing to show after so many years...