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Comment by gorbachev | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a good deal for nobody but those HTC engineers Google is going to hire, at least short term.

The $330M price is so low none of the HTC investors are going to make any money on it. HTC's mobile phone business has been unprofitable for years and Google won't make any money on it either.

Who knows maybe Google is planning on using the HTC business unit as a sort of an R&D lab for Android hardware, with no real plan on making it a traditionally profitable business.

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Considering the recent Pixels were made by HTC, I think Google just wants to cut out the middle man and have its own phone hardware business for the Pixel. This allows them to compete with Apple by having an official flagship and by being able to produce this flagship without the added cost of another company's profits and the whims of cellphone OEMs too focused on their own branded products, and all the inefficiencies that brings.

HTC has everything Google needs for an in-house Pixel from soup to nuts and they're hurting for money. Its a happy coincidence HTC is collapsing right when Google is getting serious about launching its own branded flagship phones.

I also suspect aggressive moves like this mean that Samsung is probably going to pull the trigger on a full Tizen move and eventually stop producing android phones. The Pixel is aimed right at Galaxy buyers. I'm skeptical this is just a coincidence. The agreement that Nexus was kinda, sorta a developer's phone and will always be hobbled by mid-range camera, battery, and storage seems to have ended with the Pixel line.

I just received a Pixel after my 6P died and its about the closest to iPhone quality I've seen on an Android device. Its clearly a serious attempt by Google to have a proper branded flagship.

If only they didnt have their own phone hardware divison previously.

As much as it's entertaining to see Samsung try to prop up Tizen as a deterrent against Google, it hardly seems ready for mass adoption.

It likely isn't a top priority for Samsung, so resources on it could likely be better. I presume if Samsung decided to actually pull the trigger, they'd release one last Android phone while massively ramping up the scale of their Tizen division to get it ready to ship.

I don't see why Google needs their own phone hardware business anymore than I see Apple acquiring Foxconn because they need their own phone hardware business. Apple or Google does not want to take on the overhead of manufacturing phones. HTC has a very good R&D department and that's likely the crown jewel of what Google is after. I would be surprised if this was more than just a acquihire.

Evan Blass claims Google is acquiring some engineering assets of HTC, and that HTC will retain the brand name.

That seems to support my hypothesis about the R&D lab.

source: https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/910458246082826240

serious question: what is the most impressive tech that has come out of HTC R&D in recent years? (for phones)

HTC is producing the Pixel phones, so making fatcat investors happy might not be the first priority for Google.

I also like how you framed something being good (only) for workers like a bad thing :)

That was unintentional. ;)

It's just that usually M&A is only about money. Employees are just a cost item.

I‘ve seen it the other way around before :)

It's just an acqui-hire. "Google will keep the HTC brand and take on about 100 HTC engineers". Who won't get $3.3 million each.

Those $3.3 million per engineer correspond to roughly 100 years of current salaries, according to the numbers I posted elsewhere in this thread. :/

Those numbers seem exceptionally low and it seems unlikely Google would think these engineers worth paying a premium for if the rest of the industry apparently does not (i.e. if they're worth that much, they should have left to work somewhere else already).

Engineering seems widely undervalued as a profession in many asian locales (not in Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen though, but then you have to use air- and internet filters). I don't think they have any easy options if they want to stay in Taiwan.

What are engineering salaries like at HTC in Taipei?

(A chinese-speaking friend of mine with excellent credentials and capabilities in OS quality graphical design was seriously low-balled when applying for a job there.)

Answering myself:

According to Glassdoor:

Software Engineer: 20k USD/year

Senior Software Engineer: 24k USD/year

Principal Engineer: 29k USD/year

(https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/HTC-Taipei-Salaries-EI_IE41...)

I get that it's not exactly Silicon Valley, but, wow.

How does that actually compare to cost of living, tax climate, and wages for other jobs in the area, though? Posting the USD amount provides zero information. If the median income is $8k USD then $29k is pretty fantastic. If it's $60k...

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Taipei

Found this comment which I am going to blindly trust. ;) So, for reference, the HTC salaries were in the range of 50-70k NTD/month.

"90% of people working in Taipei make from 22-68k a month. College grads often make 22k a month out of College and those with a Master Degree start at 30,000NT a month. They spend about 5 years to make 40k a month. An Engineer might make 50k-75k a month. The only reason the Average is skewed to 70k is because Taipei has millionaires and billionaires that skew these numbers. It in NO WAY represents what the everyday working Taiwanese or Foreigner generally makes.

TAIPEI WAGES

Min Wage 18,000

Factory Work 18,000-20,000

Typical Office Worker 22,000-40,000

Nurse 30,000-40,000

Taxi Driver 60,000-70,000

Flight Attendant 50,000-60,000?

Foreign English Teacher 55,000-70,000

Engineer 50,000-70,000

Doctor 150,000-400,000

Foreigner Specialist with Foreign Income---150,000-300,000"

Note that in Taiwan, most companies offer a year-end bonus (at Chinese new year) of several months of salary. At the minimum this is 1 or 2 months, but depending on individual or company performance, it can go as high as 4 months (and in extreme cases, even more!). Hence the monthly salaries need to be multiplied by 14x or 16x or more, rather than 12x to get an annual salary.

(Ok.)

I did a write up in 2014[1] when I was a bum English teacher there. (edit: man those charts are garbage, sorry folks, best of luck in that article :P )

In short, it's cheap as hellllllll. Rent was like 270/month, food and fun was nothing, life is so so so good in Taiwan. I stress regularly about Chinese bluster regarding Taiwan, it is an incredible country I really believe is chock full of opportunity.

My journey to become a software engineer started there. Now that I've snuck my way into frontend, it's my goal as I get more experienced and senior to eventually move back there and start remote contracting or start my own business there. I'm still convinced I could get the best engineers in Taiwan to work for me by just paying them 50k flat out (they make like 20-30/year and are expected to work 9am-9pm, sometimes weekends, arbitrarily) and giving them reasonable (to an American) benefits.

[1](http://ablate.blogspot.tw/2014/05/what-does-it-cost-to-live-...)

Do you know what types of platforms, languages, specializations, etc. that Taiwanese engineers tend to be strong at? Besides matters related to hardware/firmware.

Many positions that require higher education (unlike software engineering) don't even touch those figures in some EU countries.

Or is Taipei that expensive?

edit: saw the comment bellow

I've a made a bunch of Taiwanese friends when I was working in Korea, including former HTC employees, and salary was often the main motivation for their move (easily double in Korea, adjusted to CoL).

Funnily enough they've now all left, to mainland China!

That's low, about 4 years ago it was standard 30k for college grad. Glassdoor often underestimates.

Anyway this is just hearsay of course, before anybody would believe any of this I would say let's get the census in or something.

I saw a bunch of comments saying that the salaries used to be good (presumably when HTC did really well a bunch of years ago).

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