Google’s $1.1 billion acquisition of 2,000 HTC employees is complete

Update (January 30, 2018): Google has officially closed the deal with HTC. The company on Tuesday announced the news on its official blog. The search giant stated that with the newly integrated team from HTC, Taipei will now become the largest Google engineering center in Asia Pacific.
As per reports, over 2000 HTC employees from the smartphone team have joined Google and they will be working on the company’s Pixel devices and other related products.
Earlier (September 21, 2017): Google has inked an agreement with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC to acquire part of the company’s smartphone team. The deal, which is valued at $1.1 billion, will also get the search giant a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP).
HTC explained in a press release that the company’s certain employees, many of whom worked on Pixel smartphones, will be joining Google.
“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,” wrote Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President, Hardware at Google in a blog post.
With this deal, HTC lives to fight another day. The company has just got another lifeline with $1.1 billion cash infusion, which will help it to develop the future smartphone portfolio and enhance the Vive virtual reality business.
The limited and specific nature of the current deal also makes sense of Google given their experience with Motorola Mobility. This move could bring Google closer to achieving the hardware/software synergy that has worked so well for iPhone, however the Mountain View-based company will still use off-the-shelf processors (unlike Apple) in its smartphones.