IIRC, The license agreement[1] between HTC and APPLE will be voided if HTC is acquired by another company, maybe this strategy can avoid this situation.
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2012/11/11HTC-and-Apple-Settl...
>The terms of the settlement are confidential
Anything you know that we don't? Usually licenses stay valid after a company is acquired.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/11/apple-htc-license-agreeme...
> In the event of a Change of Control of a party, this Agreement shall automatically terminate unless otherwise agreed in writing by the Parties, effective immediately prior to such Change of Control.
Of course depending on how it's written it is possible there could be some room for interpretation, which would likely end up being litigated, but I suspect these huge companies have teams of lawyers that are pretty careful about that kind of thing.
As a negotiating tactic, if they really want and need to retroactively rewrite the contract they can say 'This is going to happen. You can agree, or we can spend money to destroy you legally and/or otherwise'. It depends on how badly they need to change the thing, but the amount of abstracted power they've got should they choose to wield it is enormous. At that point it becomes a game of personalities: does the CEO want to go to the mat on this one? Will the board go along? Bear in mind that shows of strength and ruthlessness will help the stock price, because those evaluating Apple for what it's worth are only interested in ruthlessness and power.
I think it's very silly to consider that laws mean anything anymore. In practice, only money matters. (in fact I don't approve of this, but that's my evaluation of how things stand, and how we got here)
Apple under Jobs showed polished deliverables to customers. Without him, Apple demoed prototypes more, talked about plans and fields they worked on more and tried to pumped up confidence by giving out information more. It's been like this for a few years. Not a short time in the tech world.
They did regroup and formed a new foundation that is quite strong. Positioning at product and service for privacy alone has no competitors in the near future. And they have everything needed to make customers believe in them (on the other hand, do customers really have other quality and trustworthy alternatives?).
The best product after Jobs from Apple, to me, is AirPods. That's the only product makes me amazed and satisfied.
I'm actually a big fan of Apple's approach on making product and an iOS developer myself.
One time payment instead of continuous revenue from future projects. The difference is that the one time is money in the bank, whereas future project work is merely a possibility that might fail to realize. In the end it is a question of the right price and I get the impression that this one has been very generous (even after discounting for the IP.
Or if they think EVERYTHING is doomed and they’re just hoping to get anything that might help save them.
- HTC's stock price has been going down for the past 5 years, and EPS was down sharply recently. Does this make HTC more or less viable on its own going forward?
- Apple finally made a VR push with the upcoming macOS High Sierra and iMac Pro—along with the HTC Vive. Google didn't fully acquire HTC here, and HTC's trajectory was already tied to Android, but still seems an interesting wrinkle there.
- Samsung continues to hedge their bets, most recently with Bixby. Really wonder if Google's continued hardware investment will make them seek more of their own path.
- Why would Google acquire just a team from HTC? Seems like the oddest of acquihires yet.