Still, an open question is why would they feel the need to buy an exisiting company? Couldnt they simply recreate a hardware company from scratch with their resources? HTC is not exactly a world leader or some unique innovator here.
I doubt Google or any of these new age silicon valley companies have the attention span to do something like this.
It used to be. There was a time, not so long ago, where HTC Desire and others were the Android phones to have. Their engineers are great, you can't deny that.
HTC made the first Android phone (G1). They made the first 4.3" smartphone (Evo for Sprint). They made the first 4G (albeit WiMAX) phone sold in the United States (Evo again). Their newest phone the HTC U 11 is arguably one of the most aesthetically attractive personal computing devices in production today.
I use Apple products across the board, but there's no denying that HTC has some serious hardware chops.
The only piece they were missing was capacitive screens. With that they could have made history.
So in term of bigger goals it was not total failure. And now situation is different, patent wars are mostly gone. Google can use HTC hardware expertise quickly for newer devices. Also unlike last time Android/OS unit is far more integrated than Andy Rubin days, so better chance of success. I am thinking Google Fuschia OS project might also get hardware help from HTC acquisition.
https://www.vive.com/us/product/standalone/
They haven't sold it as anything but VR for now, but it could have AR capabilities. (And HTC has some sort of AR apps like Vive Paper for the standalone Vive, it has a camera).