When Google confirmed it spent US$1.1 billion for the HTC deal, it had been big news. Many rumours immediately point to Mountain View going all out with this take-over.

Of course, the HTC deal that Google wants is not about buying the smartphone maker in its entirety. Instead, the US$1.1 billion is purely for acquiring most of HTC’s smartphone design division.

The HTC deal, after six months, has finally closed with Google Senior Vice President for Hardware, Rick Osterloh, updated about the move via a blog post. He also, in the same post, welcomed the “incredibly talented team who will work to produce even better and more innovative products.”

Part of the HTC deal acquisition includes more than 20,000 design and device engineers moving over to Google operations. It’s not a physical process as, according to Osterloh, all of them will remain in Taiwan. They will be the first of many to operate, and likely lead, in Google’s biggest engineering hub for the Asia-Pacific.

A substantial headcount from the HTC smartphone research and development (R&D) team take up a majority of that 20,000. All of HTC contract manufacturing operations and VR development are not a part of this knowledge transfer.

The HTC dell will see Google augmenting its hardware efforts further. As is, most of these new resources will move towards the Google Pixel programme.

Will the smartphone space see a beefier and more innovative Google Pixel entrant? Judging by how Google wants to directly compete with Apple, there is no doubt the next-gen flagships will be exceptional.

(Source: The Verge)