Why do they want to buy HTC? Are there some significant patents they are holding?
According to wikipedia they are the pixel's manufacturer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_(smartphone)
Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
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Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#32Google should just stick with making their premium pixel product to showcase their technology. HTC mostly makes low-margin, decent quality phones in a large quantity. That doesn't seem interesting to Google.
> low-margin, decent quality phones in a large quantity
That's been interesting to HTC to now. Doesn't mean they can't make a premium phone to showcase Google's tech, but just that their flagship attempts haven't moved the needle compared to the incumbents (and more than likely fair to say the Pixel hasn't either).
And, well... HTC was the contract manufacturer for the Pixel... so there's that.
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt they are in it for the phone bits of the company. They want the VR tech, I suspect. They will probably spin off the phone bit pretty quickly.
The VR tech, you mean the Vive? There's talk of spinning off the Vive portion of HTC. Besides, the Vive is based on Valve's tech, HTC is mainly handling manufacturing only.
If there's a gold rush, sell shovels. I can see no other viable reason for Google to buy HTC. They surely don't want to manufacture phones. I can't think of any major patents HTC holds on the mobile arena, can you? There was a recent article about their phone division having financial trouble.
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#34They botched the Motorola acquisition and couldn’t find a way to integrate them in their mobile efforts even though both were American companies (with Moto having a significant presence right across from GOOG in the Valley). So now doing it all over again, with a Taiwan-based company is going to work better because...?
How did they botch it? Moto was a strategic acquisition for patents; Google never intended to keep the business.
If that was the intention from the beginning they would have divested the smartphone business immediately rather than doing it 2.5 years later.
It's likely and possible that the patents were the primary purpose for the acquisition. But they put too much money & effort into the handset business to suggest that they never intended to make a go of it.
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#35Google should just stick with making their premium pixel product to showcase their technology. HTC mostly makes low-margin, decent quality phones in a large quantity. That doesn't seem interesting to Google.
> low-margin, decent quality phones in a large quantity That's been interesting to HTC to now. Doesn't mean they can't make a premium phone to showcase Google's tech, but just that their flagship attempts haven't moved the needle compared to the incumbents (and more than likely fair to say the Pixel hasn't either). And, well... HTC was the contract manufacturer for the Pixel... so there's that.
Doesn't htc make the vive too? Perhaps they want a bigger hand into vr?
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unlikely -- Tizen would be dead on arrival, being inferior in all ways to Android, including the app ecosystem.
>Unlikely -- Tizen would be dead on arrival, being inferior in all ways to Android, including the app ecosystem. Would it matter when "an Android phone" means a Samsung phone 9 times out of 10 in Western markets When an average American comes to Best Buy to buy a phone, he does not deliberate over things as abstract to him as OS of a phone. He sees an Apple phone, a Samsung phone, and a random Chinese phone.
Sony and LG are well-known brands, though, even to the most backwards people.
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#37I think this is Google shooting itself in the foot.
TechAltar on YouTube provides a very good explanation of why Samsung (and probably other phone manufacturers) are cautious of Android[1]. This is especially true when Google acts as a hardware phone manufacturer.
The summary of the argument (from memory) is that Google provides Android to hardware phone manufacturers, and it doesn't compete with them in the hardware space. Google owning Moto (and now HTC?), makes Google a direct competitor with hardware phone manufacturers -- which you could argue are its main customers in the phone market. Google can give Moto (HTC?) unfair advantages because it owns/controls Android; even if it's not done maliciously (e.g. having access to Android source before it becomes public).
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#38They botched the Motorola acquisition and couldn’t find a way to integrate them in their mobile efforts even though both were American companies (with Moto having a significant presence right across from GOOG in the Valley). So now doing it all over again, with a Taiwan-based company is going to work better because...?
Because they've done it before, they'll have learned from their mistakes and will attempt to avoid repeating them. For example, they put in place a firewall to ensure that Motorola wouldn't have any advantages over other Android manufacturers. I don't expect them to do that again. That being said, major acquisitions are hard and I expect it to fail once again. But they'll mostly make different mistakes rather than th…
Dropping the Android Firewall ? if Google does, would any future partners trust it and collaborate with it ? and without that, many of Google's efforts, including it's moonshot, will have much lower chance of sucsess. Would they risk that ?
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#39I think this is Google shooting itself in the foot. TechAltar on YouTube provides a very good explanation of why Samsung (and probably other phone manufacturers) are cautious of Android[1]. This is especially true when Google acts as a hardware phone manufacturer. The summary of the argument (from memory) is that Google provides Android to hardware phone manufacturers, and it doesn't compete with them in the hardware…
This is not accurate at all. Microsoft does the same. But every single laptop manufacturer uses Windows.
Re: Google is apparently ready to buy HTC
#40The only reasonable motivation would be the VR stuff, not really the smartphone bits from HTC. I mean in 2017 who still buy/use HTC phones? Let's be honest - the phone business of HTC is dead.
Google has good marketing and brand recognition while HTC makes great products that they can't seem to sell. It could work.