Google Is Apparently Ready To Buy Smartphone Maker HTC (cnbc.com)

According to a Taiwanese news outlet called Commercial Times, Google is in the final stages of acquiring all or part of smartphone maker HTC. CNBC reports: The report seems fishy, since Google has already been down this road, but there's a reason why Google might be interested in HTC. The Taiwanese company builds the Google Pixel, which means it could be a good fit for Google as it continues to cater to consumers with its "Pixel" smartphone brand. Here's where it sounds off base: Google acquired Motorola Mobility and then sold it off just a couple of years later. Why repeat that move? Commercial Times said HTC's poor financial position and Google's desire to "perfect [the] integration of software, content, hardware, network, cloud, [and] AI," is the driving force behind Google's interest. The news outlet said Google may make a "strategic investment" or "buy HTC's smartphone R&D team" which suggests that the VR team would exist as its own.

Comments

Ready for a true Hardware/Software commitment

[Gr8Apes]

Google acquired Motorola Mobility and then sold it off just a couple of years later. Why repeat that move?

First, Motorola was a patent play. Google gained much protection by buying the patent portfolio.

Second, Google's tried the 3rd party vendor route and gotten shit products out of it and continues watching Apple reap 95% of the mobile profit. Pixel was an attempt by Google to create a realistic competitor that would actually help them. Now that the Pixel appears realistic, Google needs more control to keep up with Apple who is ahead in many areas. (Hint, there's a reason besides fanboism that Apple has 95% of the profits)

Google buying HTC outright will have another immediate effect - Samsung's profits. Unless Samsung takes a page out of the same book and creates their own OS dev team and branches Android into their own offering.

Re:What's the reason?

[Daemonik]

There IS a reason besides fanboyism that Apple has 95% of the profits, and it's tightly integrated software and hardware solutions that do what they're supposed to, all day every day.

No, the reason is a 30% cut of every sale from the marketplace and doing their utmost best at preventing purchases through anything but the marketplace. It's called a walled garden. Apple could give away it's phones and barely dent its profits.

Also those "gimmicky" Android "toys" as you call them? They're introducing the features the next gen iPhone will sell you at a 300% markup and make you feel like you're an innovator for it.

Try being a little less of an Apple fanboy. They make a decent product, at a massive markup, and do their best to keep you locked into it. They have their downsides too, like changing adapter ports for no discernible reason other than getting to sell you all new accessories every few generations, complete lack of repairability, no SD cards, that smug sense of false superiority that makes it's users so so punchable because they fall for marketing bull.

They should merge the VR team with the Glass team

[pecosdave]

Having played with Google Glass I have to say it's pretty cool in many respects, there's certainly some first and some potential - but it's not much. By the time you're done with the new it's a creeper cam with head-mounted caller ID and an awkward Bluetooth headset.

HTC's V.R. team has a great head-mounted video game display that's not useful for all the time / daily wear.

Put these two together and see if you can make something genuinely useful in a real-world environment without making the wearers look like glass-holes.

Re:Why? Patents.

[hanwen]

Motorola had significant cash and tax offsets, making the effective price about $ 3bn.

see https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Google-buy-Motorola-for-12-5-billion-and-sell-it-off-for-2-91-billion :

"And what of Google’s supposed $10bn loss? It’s a misreported myth calculated by subtracting Motorola’s $2.91bn sale price from its $12.5bn purchase. What it misses are the $3.2bn Motorola had in cash, $2.4bn saved in deferred tax assets and two separate Motorola unit sales totalling $2.5bn in 2013. Factor in Lenovo’s purchase against roughly $2bn of Motorola losses during Google’s ownership and Google has still only paid $3bn for what it retained: $5.5bn worth of Motorola patents and the company’s cutting edge research lab."