The time has come, people. Google is officially acquiring talent from Taiwanese company HTC to amp up their hardware game and further research and development in a $1.1 billion deal. HTC has been Google's longtime partner and were also the manufacturer of the original Pixel phone. Many of the employees who worked in the Pixel division will be joining Google, according to a report. 

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Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google, said: “HTC has been a longtime partner and has created some of the most beautiful, high-end devices on the market. We can't wait to welcome members of the HTC team to join us on this journey.”

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Apart from the range of Pixel smartphones, Google and HTC have worked together on various devices i.e. the Nexus One from 2010, the Nexus 9 tablet and the HTC Dream. It needs to be clarified that Google has not acquired HTC and the Taiwanese company will continue to work on their own smartphones and VR headsets. The move has been dubbed as an “acquihire” and will cost Google at least half a million dollars per employee. 

Google is paying ~$500,000 per HTC staff (2,000 staff).
Deal includes licensing of HTC's IP

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Google wants to amp up their hardware game in order to compete with Apple and dethrone Samsung's top position in the market. Google will now have more experience and flexibility in the hardware game and will now look to expand their product portfolio. Google also poached Apple's Manu Gulati to build their own processors. Gulati was responsible for building Apple's A10x chips which gave the iPad Pro an advantage over the competition. Apple's chips are built-in house instead of by companies like Intel or Qualcomm. Qualcomm currently supplies its Snapdragon processor for Google's Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones.