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You mean like Google’s acquisition of Motorola was tough competition for Apple? What exactly is Google acquiring? And don’t say design. Google’s not spending $1B on designers.

Rumours arw HTC are about to launch thier own notch, at the bottom...... google swooped! Game on!
 
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Nice. Good news for Google phone fans and very good for android.
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If Apple fell flat on their Billion+ dollar investments as often as Google, Tim Cook and everyone under him would have been fired.

They bought Motorola for their patents.

Apple does acquire companies for such IP as well. All big companies do. Don't be misinformed.
 
This will damage Android eco system if Google are looking at bringing everything under one brand. Vast majority of people buy Android devices because they are cheap nothing else. I think there biggest rival will be Samsung in terms of high end Android phones.
 
And another would-be Apple-killer bites the dust.

HTC couldn’t compete then, what’s makes it different today, especially when Google just got a chunk of their talent?

Seems like google is just flushing good money down the toilet here.
 
And another would-be Apple-killer bites the dust.

HTC couldn’t compete then, what’s makes it different today, especially when Google just got a chunk of their talent?

Seems like google is just flushing good money down the toilet here.

Google is too narrow-minded to realize that for every single Chinese smartphone Apple-wanna-be company they acquire (and eliminate/exterminate), there will be 2 or 3 more to take its place.
 
Nice deflection...

But I wanted to hear more about HTC being a huge manufacturing power... :p

Overall... HTC hasn't been a big player in 5-6 years... or whenever HTC was a household name. Back in the EVO 4G days?

HTC's One M series got a lot of press over the years... but nobody bought them.

The truth is... HTC has been on the ropes for years... falling behind the Samsungs, Huaweis and Xiaomis of the world.

As for manufacturing... HTC didn't do too well meeting the Pixel's (small) demands.

Oh... and I haven't even mentioned HTC's financials. I read that HTC hasn't made a profit in five quarters(?)

Hmmmm... this sounds about right... Google bought Motorola after they had fallen from grace.

Maybe that's what Google does. They wait for companies to fall into disrepair... then they swoop in, extract any value, and move on.

Like I said earlier... locusts. :D

I don’t disagree with your sentiment at all.

Though your analogy doesn’t make sense. Locusts don’t wait for a period of weakness to swoop in. On the contrary, locusts usually attack an evironment when it is thriving and at its peak bloom. I think the analogy you’re looking for is vulture or scavenger.

You and others asked why this deal is different from the Motorolla situation. The main difference is in thr assett. Yes, HTC hasn’t made a successful phone in a while, but it is one of the larger high tech manufacturers outside of Shenzen. No other smartphone company that I am aware of bith designs and manufactures their own smartphones inhouse. With this deal, Google will be the first to have a fully vertically integrated smartphone - controlling the OS, the hardware, and the manufacturing.
 
With the acquisition of the HTC hardware team, Google will be able to more closely mimic Apple's strategy of close integration between software and hardware.
“More closely” must be pretty loosely defined in this case. Does HTC design it’s own silicon?
 
Google is too narrow-minded to realize that for every single Chinese smartphone Apple-wanna-be company they acquire (and eliminate/exterminate), there will be 2 or 3 more to take its place.
HTC is Taiwanese. They're also pretty innovative and unique and made one of the best phones I've ever owned in terms of call quality. I used my HTC 10 exclusively for a few months. I wouldn't even do that with my top of the line Samsungs. That phone just worked no matter what I threw at it. I was constantly messing around customizing it with different themes and launchers and it would hiccup for a small bit then run smooth. I still have that phone and eventually will learn how to really work on it. HTC allows rooting and will still honor the warranty. Not that I'm worried about that at this point.

However, they tend to waste a lot of internal space. Marques Brownlee had a hilarious review of one of their 2017 models illustrating that issue. I think it was the U-Ultra. The Jerryrig Everything channel also had a tear down that had me laughing out loud at how my HTC 10 was actually constructed on the inside. It was a bit elementary, definitely not up to Apple or Samsung standards. Yet it worked great. And even though it wasn't IP rated HTC would warrant against one incidence of water damage.
 
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They bought hardware designers and cheaper long term access to HTC's patents. Probably some of the same patents Apple and HTC agreed to in their 10 year deal. That agreement with Apple is also probably one of the reasons HTC gave Google non-exclusive rights to HTC IP.


Google acquired Motorola for that patent portfolio. They essentially paid $9 billion for Motorola's patents and dumped the hardware for $3.5 billion. They got exactly what they wanted from that Moto deal.
What patents did they pay for and for what purpose? Purely defensive? Anyway I see these comments all over and they would like Google spin. Just like when people defend Apple’s Beats acquisition.
 
I don’t disagree with your sentiment at all.

Though your analogy doesn’t make sense. Locusts don’t wait for a period of weakness to swoop in. On the contrary, locusts usually attack an evironment when it is thriving and at its peak bloom. I think the analogy you’re looking for is vulture or scavenger.

You and others asked why this deal is different from the Motorolla situation. The main difference is in thr assett. Yes, HTC hasn’t made a successful phone in a while, but it is one of the larger high tech manufacturers outside of Shenzen. No other smartphone company that I am aware of bith designs and manufactures their own smartphones inhouse. With this deal, Google will be the first to have a fully vertically integrated smartphone - controlling the OS, the hardware, and the manufacturing.
And why does Google need this? We know why Microsoft bought Nokia but they soon realized the market wasn’t interested in a 3rd mobile OS and shifted priorities elsewhere. There is no similar situation with Android. Android is on more phones than ever. Premium Google hardware is always going to be niche.
 
And they say iOS is copying Android.... right

I can understand supporting the company who invents things. I can understand preferring Android.

Android users who pretend that Apple is copying them, I don’t understand. If they’re so against copying that Apple increasing screen sizes on iPhone 6 annoys them, how can they stand to use Android?
 
What patents did they pay for and for what purpose? Purely defensive? Anyway I see these comments all over and they would like Google spin. Just like when people defend Apple’s Beats acquisition.
They got 17K patents and 7.5K patent applications. It was primarily a defensive play to counter the Apple led Rockstar Consortium purchase of Nortel patents. At the end the day, Google paid a net of approx $4 billion for those patents. They got the $3 billion Moto had on hand, and received approx $6 billion in selling off Moto assets. All in all, an okay outcome for Google.

Beats? I'm one of those people who defend that acquisition. It was smarter than any other possible acquisition in that field... by a wide margin.
 
Manufacturing is hard. Just ask Apple, who can't make enough overpriced earbuds despite having more money than god.

Or $1k+ phones
[doublepost=1505997354][/doublepost]But just looking at that photo of the Pixel, it is one ugly phone.

Think they need to work on perfecting the hardware before anything else
 
Nice. Good news for Google phone fans and very good for android.
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They bought Motorola for their patents.

Apple does acquire companies for such IP as well. All big companies do. Don't be misinformed.

For 7 measly patents that was supposed to to turn the tide against Apple in legal battles. I’m very well informed thank you very much.
 
Nice. Good news for Google phone fans and very good for android.
[doublepost=1505972217][/doublepost]

They bought Motorola for their patents.

Apple does acquire companies for such IP as well. All big companies do. Don't be misinformed.

Apple acquires companies for IP but you don't often hear of Apple paying upwards of $5 billion for a money-losing company whose only valuable asset is its IP.

I doubt Motorola's patents were worth over $10 billion. Motorola shook down Google, plain and simple. Motorola was hemorrhaging cash at the time. Google went to Motorola with a purchase price. Then-CEO of Motorola Sanjay Jha had a different figure in mind and threatened to sell to Microsoft unless Google came back with a higher purchase price.

Motorola should have been in HTC's place. I think it became evident to Google that Motorola was an albatross in the making around Google's neck. Google started unloading the company piece by piece and managed to get out of it in the black.
 
I don't see it working out for them in the long run. It is Google we are talking about here. Nice to see them taking the Apple approach though as maybe they can get on that same level one day.
 
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