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Google Buys Part of HTC's Smartphone Team For $1.1 Billion (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: Today, a deal finally happens, but Google didn't buy HTC outright. Strangely, as the deal is laid out, the search giant has seemingly bought HTC employees. Yes, for $1.1 billion, the search giant has sort of purchased human beings -- plus it gets access to some intellectual property. HTC gets a much-needed big influx of cash. "Google and HTC Corporation today announced a definitive agreement under which certain HTC employees -- many of whom are already working with Google to develop Pixel smartphones -- will join Google. HTC will receive $1.1 billion in cash from Google as part of the transaction. Separately, Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP). The agreement is a testament to the decade-long strategic relationship between HTC and Google around the development of premium smartphones," says HTC.
What do you think, when Google bought the HTC employees, do you think they made them strip naked and then had an auction?
Tech workers, you have no idea how precarious your world is. You may think you're on top of the whole capitalism game, but when push comes to shove, you're going to get the shit end of the feudalism stick like everyone else who works for a living.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They've sold about 3+ million of those pixel phones I read, so we're looking at $300 per handset sold.
IMHO, the issue with Google is they're playing catchup with their own Android OEMs and that has a lot to do with Pichai. I once watched him do a presentation on ChromeOS and he didn't have a vision, he was just sort of wishy washy on the direction, saying stuff like "well maybe extend this, and change that". Since then, Google has twiddled with technology adding features its OEMs already added.
My current beef with him is that Android is still total crap on the tablets, the bad reviews of the Pixel C's software from 3 years ago, are still valid today, years later, and he's led Google to make a poor mans Windows laptop clone, merging Chrome OS and Android, as if anyone with an Android product wanted a whole layer of crap around the outside of Android and a trackpad and mouse interface.
I see rumours of a 2 in 1, what's actually needed is an Android leader making a proper tablet. Fuck chromeOS, fuck the WIMP system on a tablet nonsense. Clueless.
So they've bought the Pixel team of HTC, yet Samsung sell more refurbished exploding Note7's than they sell Pixel phones. In their heads they're a success, in reality, they clearly are passengers on Samsung's train.
Seriously, what the actual fuck are you talking about?
Have you ever worked with a Taiwanese company? I am guess not. I have worked with several over the year. And yes, even HTC. From both US (California) and Europe.
They are extremely demanding and extremely "into the details".
In fact, at one point our mother company brought in one guy to act as our COO from one of our Taiwan locations with the idea that the team in CA should adapt towards the Taiwanese working style. The end result was 30% of the employees quit due to the ridiculous expectations which were being placed on them.
The larger companies in Taiwan have zero work/life balance relative to the US and European companies.
To say that Taiwan's culture is "Meh" as you put it, is ignorant at best and willfully racist at worst. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just some ignorant fuck ball who never left their mom's basement and not a casually racist prick.
It sounds like a legal way and face saving way for Google to prop up HTC. I can imagine the backlash is Google just gave HTC the billion. It wouls likely be unfortunate for Google if Samsung was the only major supplier of Android phones.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As one who has spent some time in Taiwan, I can tell you that the culture there is AWESOME. And yeah, totally don'tgiveashit about PC stuff, but not in a bad way. Women or minorities aren't being harassed; it's just not a topic of any interest.
I loved it there, and am looking forward to going back. BTW, the food is superb.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Get off your high horse man!
This is not about master buying slaves
This is about Google buying up the part of HTC which design first class smartphone and not getting other part of HTC which is a bureaucratic hell
You guys who never work in HTC never know how bureaucratic HTC is
Selling Android phones that can be upgraded with patches has no future for a phone vendor. Nokia learned this when they lost the struggle trying to go from a market which was "Want a new feature buy a new phone" to a market of "Want a new feature, click update".
Long term revenue from phone comes from owning the platform. That means monetizing from distribution of content or payment processing.
Samsung is the exception as they produce almost (in not completely) all components of the phone and therefore have a much higher profit margin from the phone itself. In addition, sales of components to nearly all other phone makers covers most of their internal R&D costs.
HTC is little more than a reseller trying to scrape what they can off of each sale which leaves them struggling in a market where they are forced to make phones with 2-3 year life spans of high quality while competing against pricing from companies who produce most of the components themselves. It's a clearly doomed business model.
> Tech workers, you have no idea how precarious your world is. You may think you're on top of the whole capitalism game
Well Google just paid a billion dollars for what? For HTC's cooperation as Google hired tech workers who were working at HTC. When a good company is willing to pay a billion dollars to try to get you on their payroll, yeah things are looking pretty good.
When you say "feudalism ... everyone else who works for a living", it sounds like what you're eluding to is the manorial tradition in feudal Europe. The Lords owned the land, and the fiefs who worked the land paid rent. Because the fief could never own the productive land, he would always be a fief, a renter, a peasant. The principle that wealth comes from owning productive capacity is still true, of course. Over 90% of millionaires today are millionaires because they own businesses. Businesses such as Google.
I started buying Google ( https://finance.yahoo.com/quot... ) about seven years ago, for $280/share. It's now worth $930 / share. So my wealth, the wealth I put into Google rather than big screen TVs, has more than tripled. Owning is still how you build wealth, but unlike the feudal days in Europe, you can own the businesses (and thereby build wealth) any time you feel like it. This very morning you can decide - do you want to spend your resources buying a cup of coffee for $6.50 from Starbucks, or would you rather own Starbucks and let people pay YOU $6.50 for a cup of coffee? Your choice, my friend. Becoming an owner of Starbucks (Nasdaq:SBUX) will cost you $55.15, about the same as buying eight cups of coffee from them. Your choice.