Google recently announced that it is hiring a team of engineers from HTC in order to bring more hardware expertise to its own – total cost of $1.1 billion
HTC mentioned that around 2,000 employees who are affected by the deal were already working with Google. The company leaned on HTC in the process of manufacturing the first Pixel smartphone thaat was released last year. Now, they are working together to produce the next version of it, expected to be announced on October 4.
The decision to bring a team from HTC is a clear sign that Google is backing down on its plans to produce its own hardware. The company’s executive have said that it is tremendously important to focus on putting the artificial intelligence software, such as the voice-controlled Google Assistant on a range of devices.
For example, Apple has followed a similar strategy for years now, and it has given the company an easier path when it comes to adding new features, such as augmented reality functions , due to the fact that it designs almost all of the internal parts of its smartphone.
In a blog post, Google’s senior vice president, Rick Osterloh said that the HTC deal was a continuation of “our big bet on hardware.”
However, neither one of the two companies disclosed the number of employees to be heading towards Google as part of the deal.
