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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @02:29PM (8 children)
No kidding. Worked out so well when they bought Motorola.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday September 10 2017, @04:03PM (7 children)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:12PM (6 children)
Seems awful wasteful after they lost so much money offloading Motorola onn Lenovo, however I think that was around the time the Microsoft patent shakedown stopped being a news ite. No idea if the two were related. I do remember that the other Android manufacturers were kicking up a marketing shitstorm over Google giving themselves preferential treatment if they made their own phone in house rather than partnering with separate companies. That seems to be the only reason Samsung keeps Tizen on lifesupport, to pull out and threaten Google with whenever they do something with Android that they don't like.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:22PM (1 child)
*Did* they lose money? The kept the right to access the patents, so whether they lost money or not depends on how you value that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 11 2017, @08:18AM
Well, they bought it for $12.5 billion and sold it for $2.9 billion ~3 years later, including all but 2000 patents according to a quick look a Wikipedia. They had previously sold the cable modem/appliance division for an amount not mentioned in said Wili article. I think it is safe to say they lost money on the deal, even if they gainennd some sort of other market advantage that made it worthwhile to them.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 10 2017, @06:03PM
This could also be that Motorola had a whole lot less to offer than they were let to believe.
HTC has some truly awesome phones. And Google needs some new phones right now if they expect to continue their continue their Google Fi project. HTCs designs and execution have been very good for several years. HTC came from the oem-white-box arena and would be a better player than Motorola.
HTC has a marketing problem. They have had killer phones that beat the big guys to market, but never manage to garner significant market share because (who knows why)?? Occasionally whacky leadership?
Further are dependent on their direct competitors for touch screens, cameras, batteries, and memory. Another legacy of their oem origin.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday September 10 2017, @07:00PM (2 children)
Every attempt to prop up a third mobile OS has failed (Windows, Tizen, WebOS, Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS, BlackBerry, MeeGo/Sailfish...). Is Android too entrenched now for Samsung to come in with Tizen? The more hundreds of millions of Android devices that Samsung sells, the greater the entrenchment.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday September 10 2017, @09:27PM
I think you're right. I had an N9 and it was awesome. I could write software for it in C++ with Qt - any custom application I wanted, including some very handy engineering and analysis tools. It was great having a truly open system I could download my personal software utilities to over a USB cable, and I could use the same Qt framework I use for desktop. Nothing is going to make serious in-roads against iOS and Android though. It would have to offer normal, KFC-eating ET-watching assholes something valuable. Maybe an OW! My Balls app.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @10:40PM
I agree that it is increasingly unlikely that Tizen ever will or even could suceed, especially since the transtion to the replacement of Dalvik with ART. That is what killed BlackBerry's compatibility layer that was stuck on masquerading as Android 4.3 with no chance of an upgrade. However, Samsung is still spending money developingn it for some reason. If they really wanted or had to, they are well placed to try and compete on their own. Imagine if all Samsung TVs and othehr appliance could operate natively with Tizen phones, but you had to pay extra for Android. Or if they released Tizen as an update for the last generation or two of their Galaxy phones, possibly OTA and automatic like the Windows 10 debacle. They could also hit developing markets like India and Brazil hard, not to mention their native Korea. Perhaps Intel has some cash to burnn on another mobile attempt, and they are obstensibly a partner on Tizen, which was the "successor" to Meego which was in turn what replaced Moblin. All together unlikely, but they keep it around as a threat in case Alphabet/Google goes too far for their liking.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Sunday September 10 2017, @07:08PM (3 children)
If I remember correctly, HTC are/were one of the handset makers that had non-locked down boot-loaders, and were quite friendly to alternative ROMs.
https://www.htcdev.com/bootloader [htcdev.com]
If Google have bought them, I suspect that will change.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday September 10 2017, @10:11PM
I seem to remember a series of several thousand people posting on their FaceBook page not to lock their bootloaders. I think it was them. They did listen at least.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday September 11 2017, @01:43AM
That's mostly, but not entirely, true. I can personally verify that the unlocking procedures provided at the link above were *not* valid for Verizon phones. Apparently, some network providers were and are still gigantic assholes and required HTC to deny unlocking directly to their phones.
That said, HTC at least provided this functionality for some (most?) of their customers. However, they, like other phone manufacturers aren't so keen on providing their own, or encouraging third party, software upgrades. [soylentnews.org]. I suppose that, from a new phone sales perspective, that makes some sense. But a customer who bought two phones from them won't be purchasing a third. Instead, I'll be buying a phone from a manufacturer who shares API access to custom hardware/firmware with third-party developers.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sourcery42 on Monday September 11 2017, @09:19PM
Actually the google branded Nexus and now Pixel phones are among the easiest smartphones available to unlock the bootloader at the moment, but what the future holds remains to be seen.
(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