In late 2017, Google announced that it had entered a cooperation agreement with HTC to acquire the talent who worked on the early HTC-made Pixel devices. At the time, HTC was struggling financially, so many on the outside saw it as more of a helpful gesture from Google to keep HTC’s mobile business afloat. As history shows, maybe more was needed.
The deal closed in late January of 2018, so by our count and as noted by calendar-checking reddit user u/Ruff_Ryda, it’s been six years since this took place.
From an outside perspective, it’s hard to determine just how much the acquired talent influenced subsequent Pixel devices or who all is still involved at Google. If anything, one could argue that many of the Pixel devices Google has recently released, and even the ones on the horizon, still have a bit of HTC design deep in their DNA. I wrote the following in May of 2020 when debating the “worse purchase,” Google’s $12.5B acquisition of Motorola Mobility or the HTC $1B gift.
It was solely a talent acquisition play, seeming more like a $1 billion favor to HTC to help its bottom line as the company was failing fast. Since HTC’s Pixel team has joined Google, the Pixel phones haven’t been widely successful. This point is most evident with the latest news being that the Pixel 4 was a complete and utter failure on the market.
History has a way of putting things into a much more friendly perspective. The Pixel brand has really grown into its own since the Pixel 6 with things only looking up. Our main hope is that all of the human beings (what these companies call talent) involved in these deals are on their feet and doing well, whether it be for Google, Apple, or whoever.
Last I looked, HTC is still heavily involved in VR.
LONG LIVE HTC…. even if it’s through other brands and Innovations…
At one point, HTC was the definition of “THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX!”
I miss HTC man… they had that fine line between gimmicky but not lol they did cool stuff with their designs, materials and such, just all around made it cool to have an Android, I really hope we can see its resurgence but that’s doubtful given the landscape now
My favorite phone was made by HTC. The Nexus One. The hardware was good. HTC software was trash. In the very early days it was just as bad as Samsung’s TouchWiz. The launcher and dialer were even worse that TouchWiz.
Woof. Miss HTC being in the game.
Had several friends, from my days at HTC, that were part of that deal. A few are still with the Pixel Team, but most have since moved on. Definitely a lot talent in that group. Pixel wouldn’t certainly not be what it is today without them!
Nothing google does is out of the goodness of its evil heart. There was a reason for the $1B purchase of the HTC team. The success of the Pixel could have been the reason.
As far as the Motorola purchase, the reason was solely due to its patents. google transferred those to itself, then re-sold Motorola.
Damn I’m getting old I remember my HTC Dimond running good Windows before all that Metro foolishness
Had the same phone. Good times
Man super good times! At that time I was on cricket and I had a guy that could get them to work with it. I thought I was the stuff lol
Those were the days… I greatly miss HTC. I wonder what they would be making now if they still made flagship phones.
The problem with earlier pixel phones is that they were made by LG. The last great Google phone was the Nexus 6. And interestingly the next great phone started around the Pixel 6. So maybe it just takes Google 6 years to figure things out. So by that marker, the Tensor 6 will be boss.
IMO – Nexus 6 was huge! It was also a Motorola made phone that was very awkward to hold with and without a case. My favorite was the Nexus 6P, but ended up bending after putting a Google branded case on it. I bent it back, traded to GameStop and got the Nexus 5x, which boot looped on me.
My overall pick of Google made phones was the Pixel 2 Panda if I had to chose. I do really like the Pixel 8 Pro, but will wait until its EOL to determine how it treated me.
Don’t remind me of bootloop. My lg did that as I was coaching my kids team in a tournament. All the roster and waivers were on the phone. Ugh
I heard a lot about the boot loop issues on the Nexus 5X but I was luckily enough to not have the issue. Although I did have to get a warranty replacement for a bad proximity sensor.
The 5x was LG made. The Whale aka Nexus 6 was not without its faults but was a solid phone for the time period. The 6P was actually Huawei made, and obviously had its issues with bendgate. And now they are totally banned from the USA due to their connection with the CCP.
Your opinion of the best is my opinion of the worst.
Considering Google reported last night that the Pixel line generated $10.79 Billion in just last quarter and revenue is rising 20% annually….yeah they got a good deal 6 years ago. Google still needs to give us bundled trip emails in Gmail though!