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Google has recently confirmed that it has completed its acquisition of a significant portion of HTC’s hardware division. First made public back in September of last year, the deal is worth $1.1 billion, and basically involves Google absorbing more than 2,000 engineers from the Taiwanese phone maker (that is about 20 percent of HTC’s crew of engineers, including members of the team that developed and built the Pixel devices).
Apart from welcoming the Pixel engineers to its fold, Google will also be getting a non-exclusive license for HTC’s intellectual property. Just to be perfectly clear, the Taiwan based mobile manufacturer will continue to produce its own branded smartphone devices, while keeping ownership of the Vive virtual reality branding.
Google may be one of the biggest tech companies in the world, but when it comes to mobile, one can argue that the company badly needs its own smartphone hardware division. In past years, Google routinely outsourced the hardware development and production of its branded devices to various phone makers, including HTC, LG, and Motorola, just to name a few. But that should change now that it has its own team of engineers.
Moreover, the completion of the acquisition deal also grants Google the opportunity to establish a major engineering base in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. For the record, this base will likely be known as Google’s biggest engineering site in the Asian region, and from now on serve as the company’s smartphone production headquarters in the years to come.
Speaking of Asian developments, the last few months have seen Google intensify its efforts in the continent. More than a month ago, the tech giant had revealed that it was planning to start an artificial intelligence lab in China’s capital city, Beijing. Aside from opening its first ever AI center in China, the company is also launching a base in Shenzhen, considered by many as the mass market electronics manufacturing hub of the world. For good measure, Google is also pouring investments into Chushou (a streaming service provider based in China), XtalPi (biotechnology company), and Go-Jek (ride hailing service in Indonesia). Lastly, Google has also signed a strategic partnership with China’s Tencent, with the two entities teaming up for a broad patent licensing deal.
As for recent HTC developments, the phone maker unveiled a new phablet (the HTC U11 Eyes) a couple of weeks ago, and also announced a new and improved Vive Pro virtual reality headset earlier this year.
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