Google acqui-hires 2,000 HTC employees for $1.1 billion
by from Techreport on (#32T94)
In a blog post today, Google's SVP of Hardware Rich Osterloh announced that the company is making a major acquisition from HTC. However, unlike typical acquisitions, only a specific part of the company's workforce is changing hands in the deal. According to the New York Times (NYT), Google is picking up some two thousand of HTC's employees in exchange for $1.1 billion in cash. The deal also includes a non-exclusive licensing agreement for some of HTC's intellectual property.
The move is a huge expansion of Google's hardware division, and Osterloh described it as "a continuation of [Google's] big bet on hardware." Google said ...