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Slashdot Asks: Why Does Google Want To Purchase HTC? (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the big-fish-small-fish dept.

Rumor has it Google is planning to purchase HTC -- or at least a portion of it. The speculation of this has been doing rounds for weeks now, and it reached a new high today after HTC said its stock will stop trading from Thursday, as it prepares to make a "major announcement" tomorrow. Bloomberg reported today: Alphabet's Google is close to acquiring assets from Taiwan's HTC, according to a person familiar with the situation, in a bid to bolster the internet giant's nascent hardware business. HTC, once ranked among the world's top smartphone makers, is holding a town hall meeting Thursday, according to tech website Venture Beat, which cited a copy of an internal invitation. The shares will also be suspended from trading as of Sept. 21 due to a pending announcement, according to the Taiwan stock exchange. Of course Google has made similar moves in the past. It previously owned Motorola for a brief period of time, but that acquisition didn't materialize much. The company has however, since re-hired the Motorola chief it once had, Rick Osterloh, and founded a separate hardware team under his stewardship. Claude Zellweger, the one-time chief designer of HTC Vive, is also now at Google, working on that company's Daydream virtual reality system.

What reasons could Google have to purchase HTC? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

2 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. My guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In 2011, VIA technologies sold its graphics subsidary "S3" to HTC, my guess is the are actually interrested in the Graphics Patents and knowledge from S3.

  2. As of posting this there are two others by H3lldr0p · · Score: 3, Interesting

    which state the obvious. 1) That HTC is a competitor in the same phone space and that 2) Google has money to burn.

    There's a third reason.

    Google doesn't know how to innovate anymore. They've gone as far as they can with computers as they are and don't want to sink time and money into finding the next new thing. Instead they're going through a retrenching so that profitability remains relatively high while seeking as many monopoly positions as they can. They already have search and internet advertisement sewn up. The US doesn't have the will to establish a new regulatory regime and the EU doesn't currently have the reach to force the US into following their course. That may change by the time President Stupid is done but that's for the future to decide.

    In the meantime, the smart move is for Google to gobble up as much as it can under their Alphabet umbrella and see which keeps bringing in the money.