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from the alphabet-is-gonna-be-in-everything-from-a-to-z dept.
A report from a Taiwanese news outlet called Commercial Times says Google is in the final stages of acquiring all or part of smartphone maker HTC.
The news follows a separate story from late August that suggested Taiwan-based HTC was interested in some sort of sale.
HTC, once one of the more popular smartphone makers in the United States, has fallen off of most carrier store shelves after several consecutive unsuccessful smartphone launches. It recently launched a separate division that sells virtual reality headsets.
The report seems fishy, since Google has already been down this road, but there's a reason why Google might be interested in HTC.
The Taiwanese company builds the Google Pixel, which means it could be a good fit for Google as it continues to cater to consumers with its "Pixel" smartphone brand.
In the end, there can be only one.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/google-buying-htc-report-says.html
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday September 10 2017, @11:18PM
Whether I like this development or not.
I own an HTC phone (OneMax) which is an awesome phone, with a nice large screen, an external SD card slot and *great* battery life.
I've been disappointed in HTC as they abandoned the OneMax WRT Android upgrades (the stock ROMs are KitKat/4.4, and no upgrades forthcoming), but haven't shared the proprietary fingerprint and IR blaster libraries with the likes of CyanogenMod/LineageOS, limiting the functionality, assuming I mind losing fingerprint and IR blaster features, of the phone and locking out the many improvements (especially the permissions model introduced in v5.0/Lollipop) in later versions of Android.
Perhaps Google will be more interested in collaboration, but I won't hold my breath.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr