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Google signs agreement with HTC
- tkubacki 9y agoads money will feed engineers - good news
- EddieRingle 9y agoImportant bit: > That’s why we’ve signed an agreement with HTC, a leader in consumer electronics, that will fuel even more product innovation in the years ahead. With this agreement, a team of HTC talent will join Google as part of the hardware organization. These future fellow Googlers are amazing folks we’ve already been working with closely on the Pixel smartphone line, and we're excited to see what we can do together as one team. The deal also includes a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property.
- yeukhon 9y agoThe "non-exclusive" bit is actually quite important here. This means anyone can get IP from HTC, and I am not sure if that's a good deal at all, if Samsung comes along to pour down couple billions. What isn't clear is whether Google will have access to the exclusive HTC intellectual property at all.
- usrusr 9y agoThe way I read it the "non-exclusive" refers to the access, not to the IP: Google got a permanent license to use every IP HTC owns. HTC stays the owner and could strike similar deals with others or completely sell it in parts or whole, Google's ability to use those patents would be unaffected, as selling IP does not revoke existing licences. There is no mystery about some distinction between "exclusive IP" and "non-exclusive IP" (whatever that would mean).
- yeukhon 9y agoThat's what I meant. They have access, but what is really not clear is whether they have access to the exclusive IP. If they don't, they would have to strike for another agreement. This is not noted in this announcement, which makes perfect sense. This is a collaboration agreement more than anything else.
- cbraz 9y agoWhat exclusive IP? What's being discussed is "non-exclusive access" to IP. Meaning that Google/Alphabet can make use of that IP and HTC can still use it or license it to other companies.
- yeukhon 9y agoYou still don't get it. This does not mean Google has the whole IP. In simple terms, what Google gets is not the best deal if what they can access are also available to other competitors for a deal. Get it now? You usually want to have exclusive access, like certain songs are exclusively released on Spotify. Get it?
- s73ver_ 9y agoIt means that Google can use it at all. Otherwise they would be unable to use it. Which is what they're concerned about. Previously, with other companies actually making the phones, they didn't have to worry about that kind of thing. Now that they're looking to do more of it themselves, they do. Google doesn't give a damn if Samsung can come in and use the same IP and have similar features on their phones. Remember, Google just wants to improve the Android experience as a whole. If they use the HTC IP in a cool way, it's good for Google if Samsung does the same thing.
- yeukhon 9y agoI am confused. What kind of things? Google's intention is not to improve Android. They know what features people want. What they want is to expand their business in consumer hardware. This could be useful for technology such as Google hlr Glass. Whatever they can scrape together. The real only exclusive deal right now is they have a bunch of HTC engineers working at Google. I do not understand how so many still don't get why I brought up this exclusive vs non-exclusive deal. The best deal one can get is exclusive rights. The unknown here is we don't know whether Google's agreement includes (NDA) any exclusive IP.
- grzm 9y agoPlease don't use code blocks for text quoting. They cause side scrolling which can be annoying in desktop browsers and nigh unreadable on mobile. Common methods to quote text blocks on HN are to use a > prefix and/or asterisks to italicize the quoted text. Edit: Thanks for updating!
- EddieRingle 9y agoSorry - I used '>' first but instinctively changed it to a block since HN didn't actually format it any differently. (And I use a Chrome extension to restyle HN, so code blocks don't have the issues you described.)
- akvadrako 9y ago> Sorry - I used '>' first but instinctively changed it to a block since HN didn't actually format it any differently. Indeed HN has miserable quoting constructs. I prefer the italics with ">", but dedicated support would be nice.
- Philomath 9y agoWhat Chrome extension do you use?
- gjm11 9y agoI also find quoting on HN annoying when I need to do it. But it occurs to me that this may be (at least in part) a deliberate move to discourage quote-heavy styles of discussion, which are always tempting but would probably not be good for HN. I'm thinking of this sort of thing, as found in the good ol' days on Usenet: > > Sorry - I used '>' first > You should have trusted your first instincts. > > but instinctively changed it to a block > So you tried the right thing and changed it to the wrong thing? What's wrong with you? > > since HN didn't actually format it any differently. > You didn't request any formatting and you're surprised HN didn't give you what you didn't ask for? ... and so on. (For the avoidance of doubt, the snarky tone of the above does not reflect my actual opinions. It's just what tends to happen in the comment-on-fragments kind of interaction, which is one reason why discouraging it here might be wise.)
- sidcool 9y agoSo is this an acquisition or a recruitment drive?
- ytch 9y agoMuch like acquisition. From some local rumor (maybe from HTC's Taiwan employee, but not confirmed yet), Google won't acquire all team member, they want RD mostly, not the management people. And google will have a internal interview for those RD to decide who can stay, then sign a two year work contract with them. so that's some different compare to other google employee.
- ytch 9y agoMore leak from HTC's internal mail to Pixel team: https://i.imgur.com/krONzs1.jpg https://i.imgur.com/krONzs1.jpg Rick Osterloh will come to Taiwan for detailing the next step to them.
- foobaw 9y agodoesn't HTC also have a US R&D division (most likely they do to work with North American carriers and Qualcomm). Do you know what's happening to them?
- ytch 9y agoNo news about them currently. The mail only says he will go to HTC's Taoyuan and Taipei office today. and almost all announcements specified the "Pixel team". Maybe the team is located at the two office only.
- hbosch 9y agoI believe HTCs R&D lab in Seattle is all Vive, so, likely unaffected.
- maruhan2 9y agoSo confused. So in essence, Google bought a team from HTC?
- ytch 9y agoYeah, from announcement of HTC to Taiwan's stock exchange, Google buys HTC's Pixel team, license to HTC's IP, and a RF lab (Subsidiary of HTC) for 1.1 billion USD.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoWhere is the RF Lab announcement?
- ytch 9y agoFrom HTC's announcement to Taiwan's stock exchange, in Chinese only[1] > 本公司董事會決議通過出售世界通全球驗證股份有限公司100%股權予Google The company is named 世界通全球驗證股份有限公司 (communication global certification inc), website[2]. [1] http://news.cnyes.com/news/id/3923532 http://news.cnyes.com/news/id/3923532 [2] http://www.cgctw.com/CGCWebsite/ http://www.cgctw.com/CGCWebsite/
- daburninatorrr 9y agoA simple Google search failed me, maybe I don't know what I am looking for, but now I am at the mercy of the internet when I ask... What is a RF Lab?
- roymurdock 9y ago
- maguay 9y agoRandom things that strike me about this deal: - HTC's stock price has been going down for the past 5 years, and EPS was down sharply recently. Does this make HTC more or less viable on its own going forward? - Apple finally made a VR push with the upcoming macOS High Sierra and iMac Pro—along with the HTC Vive. Google didn't fully acquire HTC here, and HTC's trajectory was already tied to Android, but still seems an interesting wrinkle there. - Samsung continues to hedge their bets, most recently with Bixby. Really wonder if Google's continued hardware investment will make them seek more of their own path. - Why would Google acquire just a team from HTC? Seems like the oddest of acquihires yet.
- crispytx 9y agoYeah, why would HTC agree to something like this? Sounds like Google got a hell of a deal getting to pick which engineers and IP they want without having to buy the whole company.
- MBCook 9y agoIf they think that division is doomed and this is more money than it would be worth if they kept it they might do it. Or if they think EVERYTHING is doomed and they’re just hoping to get anything that might help save them.
- usrusr 9y agoBuild a local team that a foreign project customer would have trouble hiring directly (due to being foreign), let the team prove itself on the project, hand them over for a massive fee. As long as the project/team customer is willing to pay good money for this it is perfectly fine business. One time payment instead of continuous revenue from future projects. The difference is that the one time is money in the bank, whereas future project work is merely a possibility that might fail to realize. In the end it is a question of the right price and I get the impression that this one has been very generous (even after discounting for the IP.
- ytch 9y ago> Why would Google acquire just a team from HTC? IIRC, The license agreement[1] between HTC and APPLE will be voided if HTC is acquired by another company, maybe this strategy can avoid this situation. [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2012/11/11HTC-and-Apple-Settle-Patent-Dispute/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2012/11/11HTC-and-Apple-Settl...
- AbeEstrada 9y agoI think Google wants the VR (HTV Vive) team.
- microcolonel 9y agoIt'd be great to have a trilateral collaboration between Valve, Google, and HTC on that. Google would have the mobile platform stake, Valve the high end stake, and HTC the hardware stake. However, they bought an RF lab from HTC, so it's probably a mobile product, not the VR product.
- benmcnelly 9y agoHalf Life 3 confirmed!
- maldeh 9y agoThe notion of such a collaboration sounds interesting. For most industries, it would healthier for consumers in the long run if the major stakeholders competed, rather than collaborated, at this early stage. But in the short term, it means framework fragmentation, publishing pains for indie app developers as the big guns vie for exclusive contracts. Not to mention potentially delaying technological progress in the space, what with all the R&D occurring within isolated silos keeping their trade secrets close to the vest.
- microcolonel 9y ago> For most industries, it would healthier for consumers in the long run if the major stakeholders competed, rather than collaborated, at this early stage. For what it's worth, I figure they have lots of competition in terms of Samsung, Oculus, and Microsoft.
- KGIII 9y agoYup, that's what it seems like. Which means I was probably wrong. I believed, when announced, that they were interested in the VR hardware department. Well, more like I hoped it would be the goal. I'd love good AR, which I see as being similar enough to VR. I also want it tied to some sort of big data along with ease of discoverability. I'd like to be riding down the road, see a bridge, be able to identify the bridge, be able to see when it was constructed, be able to see the plans and capacity limits, see who did the construction, see if there were accidents during construction, and things like that. I'd like the same for buildings, airplanes, cars, etc... So, Google married with VR would be a potential start to something I'd really like to see. Alas, I was wrong. I'm a bit disappointed, but not really surprised.
- tanilama 9y agoTL;DR, Google doesn't acquire HTC, they bought a team.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gvb 9y agoFrom the other side of the coin, HTC sold their "seed corn[1]." Without their (premier?) phone development team, did they sell off their path to regaining phone market share? [1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/To+eat+the+seed+corn http://www.thefreedictionary.com/To+eat+the+seed+corn
- thrillgore 9y agoI did a literal spit take when I saw this. Are they doing this for phone production or for the Vive/VR?
- theduncan 9y agoIt sounds like the HTC Pixel Team, minus the management people.
- Abishek_Muthian 9y agoGood win-win.
- spacehunt 9y agoHTC's press release raises even more questions -- they claim they will continue to develop the next flagship phone? > HTC will continue to have best-in-class engineering talent, which is currently working on the next flagship phone, following the successful launch of the HTC U11 earlier this year. HTC will also continue to build the virtual reality ecosystem to grow its VIVE business, while investing in other next-generation technologies, including the Internet of Things, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. http://www.htc.com/us/about/newsroom/2017/2017-09-21-htc-google/ http://www.htc.com/us/about/newsroom/2017/2017-09-21-htc-goo...
- desdiv 9y agoI read it as: HTC will continue to develop HTC's next flagship phone. Google will continue to use the HTC Pixel team they just brought to develop Google's next Pixel flagship phone.
- bcatanzaro 9y ago"It’s still early days for Google’s hardware business." Why no mention of Motorola in 2011? Google bought it for $12.5B, and sold it 2014 for $3B. I think it would have made the blog post better to give some explanation for why Things Are Different This Time.
- cromwellian 9y agoThey also sold Motorola Home for $2.35B. https://www.wired.com/2014/01/google-moto/ https://www.wired.com/2014/01/google-moto/
- bcatanzaro 9y agoAll this explanation is great - as I said it would have improved the blog post to include some of that. I'm not arguing that it's not actually different this time. But I think they should have made the case in the blog post.
- pgeorgi 9y agoIt might have improved understanding of some historical tidbits at the cost of distracting from today's story. Corporate blogs are still PR venues first and foremost, aimed at investors and the media. Investors already know how the moto deal turned out (or are willing to look into it themselves to check the numbers). The media needs soundbites.
- beilabs 9y agoWas that not a patent grab? I always thought that was the main premise.
- paulie_a 9y agoFrom my understanding that was specifically for the gigantic patent portfolio and little interest in the hardware. Hence the immediate spinoff.
- sangnoir 9y agoGoogle bought Motorola patents that came with hardware businesses attached for defense purposes, not because they wanted in on the hardware business. This was after they found themselves unarmed during a thermonuclear patent war. Google dropped the hardware businesses and kept the patents. The patent market was notably frothy at the time, and conventional wisdom then valued Motorola's patent chest at $4.0-4.5 billion (Apple + MS consortium bought the comparable Nortel trove for a price in that ballpark). If that value is correct, then Google made a profit on buying and selling Motorola (patents + Moto Home + Moto Mobile).
- jimjimjim 9y agomore acquisitions another nexus 7 god, i hope so.
- gjm11 9y agoYou might want to make the last line "o god, i hope so" or "god, i do hope so" or "god, i hope it is" if you were aiming for five syllables there. [EDITED to add:] Hmm, no, the last of those doesn't work. Maybe "god, I hope there is".
- jimjimjim 9y agothanks. no more drunk haikuing for me
- bostand 9y agoI don't think Google cares about tablets anymore. But I would love to see an updated nexus 7!
- SeoxyS 9y agoDidn't quite work out for them last time… why will this be any different than Motorola?
- kasabali 9y agowhy do you think it didn't work out? https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/02/10/how-google-used-motorola-to-smack-down-samsung-twice/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/02/10/how-goog...
- Zigurd 9y agoFor all the reasons: Did not double Google's headcount, did not cost over $10B, did not distract management, did not make Samsung queasy...
- xbmcuser 9y agoI was really hoping they would at least take the HTC distribution and servicing channels to sell pixel phones more widely instead of just a few countries like currently.
- KGIII 9y agoI'm not seeing anything on the blog that says the will or won't do that. So, I guess you can keep hoping, for now at least. Edit: specifically, I don't see anything that indicates they won't distribute it more widely. Sorry for being unclear.
- jaypaulynice 9y agoGoogle bought Motorola for $12.5 billion and sold it at a discount...Google just doesn't get user experience. Google bought so many user experience startups and yet they have nothing to show after so many years...
- KGIII 9y agoWhile I have complaints about Google, UX isn't one of them. I can't think of a Google product that is really all that unintuitive, undiscoverable, or difficult to use. Am I missing something? I guess it can be rather subjective, but I don't have any complaints about UX or UI. I should add that I've been told I'm too forgiving of bad design, so this is a legitimate question. I really don't see anything wrong with the UX from any of their products that are in common use. I did have occasion to use one of their search appliances and the UX wasn't bad, but the results were pretty terrible. Terrible results might qualify as bad UX, I guess?
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoTry showing a senior how to use Gmail versus how to use Comcast or AOL. You'd be surprised how well the current generation of tech savvy folks are trained on Google's UI patterns... and how little sense they make for everyone else. I've worked with a lot of seniors with home computer help, and Google software is practically a non-starter.
- mirimir 9y agoWhat in particular? My wife is happy enough with it. Sometimes, I hear her complaining about Gmail, that she can't add attachments. But otherwise, it seems to work for her. We're both seniors, by the way :)
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThe two biggest issues I come across regularly is icons people don't understand the meaning of, and the fact that the UI changes frequently. I've found a lot of the people I work with learn how to do things, and then expect them to remain that way. Moving a button over two inches or putting it in a menu will send people calling me to come back because they don't know how to do something. I have a lot of people literally ask me to repeat a process several times so they can write each step in doing things like attaching a file or forwarding an email down on paper. So when a button gets renamed or moved or even just has an icon instead of text, it throws people.
- atomicnumber1 9y agoSo, a billion dollars for about a 100 engineers.
- njarboe 9y ago$10 million each. Google might think that is an ok deal for the right people. Google market cap ($650 billion) divided by number of engineers (~40k) is $16 million.
- cloudwalking 9y agoA lot cheaper than Instagram.
- dgaaaaaaaaaa 9y agoOr whatsapp. But then those were complete acquisitions
- bitmapbrother 9y ago>Peter Shen, HTC’s chief financial officer, said that HTC would still employ more than 2,000 research and design staffers after the deal is done, down from around 4,000, according to the New York Times. That makes today’s announcement more of an acquihire of talent than a traditional acquisition of resources.
- shard 9y agoNot just 100 engineers, but also a non-exclusive license on HTC patents. Not knowing the terms of the license it's hard to value, but I would suspect it's a significant chunk of the $1B.
- allenleein 9y agoAccording to CEO of HTC (Live on TV),it's not just 100 but 2000 employees. Sources(Eng): https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-09-21/htc-messed-up-its-google-deal https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-09-21/htc-mes...
- CrunchGo 9y agoI'm very excited about google's future plans. Anyone else feel like this is their path towards competing with apple and samsung in the long run?
- blocked_again 9y agoAs long as you don't give a fuck to your privacy you should be very excited.
- patryn20 9y agoWhen any company gets large enough they become a repository of technical failures and an acquirer of the same. Unfortunately that ultimately matters little to stock value and market share.
- maxpert 9y agoIs it me or do you also see another Motorola in making?
- 0xbear 9y agoGuaranteed in the top 10 on Google's internal Memegen: "WTF are you doing cat" gif.
- dmitriid 9y agoGoogle has desperately needed its own hardware for several years now. This is especially apparent this year. Just to name a few things: - Apple is much later to the AR game than Google, yet can push AR to ~200 million devices at the push of a button. Google has had Tango for a while now, and can only push it to a very small number of phones (compared to Apple's) - A11 bionic chip is so far ahead, it's not even funny anymore, and is married to all other parts of the hardware and software. Google has nothing that's even close to this. - "Kinect-in-a-phone" sensor strip of iPhone X. Even if Google has the know-how, it can never provide the same features, because they don't have their own hardware. "Owning the stack: The legal war to control the smartphone platform" by Arstechnica remains as relevant as ever, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/owning-the-stack-the-legal-war-for-control-of-the-smartphone-platform/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/owning-the-stack...
- Zigurd 9y agoGoogle's fundamental need is a coherent and competitive OEM ecosystem. It so happens that making hardware, like Microsoft makes Surface products, is one way to help that along. It used to be accepted wisdom that when a platform provider competes with their ecosystem partners, that's a bad thing. Now it's "complicated." For example, let's suppose Android One takes off and all the cheaper-tier OEMs let Google handle the OS updates, and let's suppose that lights a fire under Samsung and other upper-tier OEMs to provide more-timely updates for longer. Does Google still need to make 3% of the hardware market share?
- dmitriid 9y ago> Google's fundamental need is a coherent and competitive OEM ecosystem. Nope, it doesn't. Because it means it has no means to control OS distribution, updates, and hardware improvements. Google is now entirely dependent on OEMs to deliver Google's software. Let's say, Google comes up with a great new idea. A true competitor to Apple's AR (well, Google had it a year and half ago), Face ID, camera tech etc. Right now it may take anywhere from a year to five years to get this into the hands of consumers. The only way to get anything coherent out of the Android ecosystem is to either impose extremely tight controls on major OEMs (Samsung will definitely not agree to that), or become an OEM.
- slatercharles 9y agoGood news for HTC
- kitd 9y agoOT, but but I find really irksome Veep-type blog posts that jump indistinguishably between what 'I' did and what 'we' or 'our team' did, as if there's no difference.
- thasaleni 9y agoI think this is great for HTC, HTC is really good on hardware, and are only really struggling with marketing their phones, partnering with Google is almost a no brainer
- taoufix 9y agoBut Google is not good at marketing either :/
- aedron 9y agoGoogle's strategy is to make something so good that they don't need to market it. This harkens back to when Google won search. I think they've done alright with this strategy, whereas whenever they try to 'go mainstream' with glitzy marketing and big vision (thinking of Google+ here) they usually botch it bigtime.
- nath12 9y agoNo one else hears this and thinks vertically integrated monopoly? What if Google advantages their own hardware over competitors, which in turn will decrease market competition and hurt consumers
- nolok 9y agoYou mean, do what Apple does, what Samsung tried with Tizen, and what pretty much everyone has done for mobiles outside Android / Windows mobile ?
- lmm 9y agoEven if it's common practice, it's still worth asking whether it's good for customers.
- kentt 9y agoGiven how horrible non-(Nexus|Pixel) phones have been, I'd consider this to be better in practice. I agree with you that in an ideal world, other Android device makers would be on a level playing field and not do a shit job.
- scottlegrand2 9y agoSo this is like an acqui-hire except that the employees don't see any benefit from it except that they are now Google employees? Meanwhile, HTC Executives pocket a huge wad of cash? Great.
- s73ver_ 9y agoIsn't that any acqui-hire? The people who do the work are traded like cattle and usually don't get anything out of it. Worse, sometimes they did have equity in the company, but that's now traded for equity in the new company, but with a reset on the vesting time period.
- scottlegrand2 9y agoNot if you just say no to startup equity offers for less than 1% of the company, but sadly there's one born every millisecond...
- s73ver_ 9y agoVery few people have that kind of bargaining power. Calling someone who doesn't a "sucker" is just being an ass.
- scottlegrand2 9y agoDisagree. We all have choices. But it's easy to convince yourself otherwise. If you're getting less than 1%, you'll get a better ROI working for the bigCo of your choosing. Suggesting otherwise is disingenuous. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4008733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4008733
- s73ver_ 9y agoYour statement does nothing to advance your point; rather, all it does is show you have no empathy for others.