Taiwanese smartphone vendor HTC has splashed the cash again, this time acquiring all the shares of Seattle-headquartered mobile Internet applications company Dashwire for up to US$18.5 million. The move is expected to bolster HTC’s cloud computing capabilities and give it protection in patent litigation against competitors including Apple. Dashwire offers services that enable users to send text messages, make calls, save photos, synchronise contacts, videos and settings from their mobile phones to connected accounts.

The acquisition comes a month after HTC said it plans to acquire California-based S3 Graphics for US$300 million in a move to gain the upper hand over Apple in an ongoing legal battle as the two battle for market share in the competitive smartphone market. Dow Jones Newswires cites Samsung Securities analyst Birdy Lu as stating that the Dashwire deal should give HTC better protection in patent litigation due to Dashwire’s licensing agreement with Intellectual Ventures (which owns the rights to more than 20,000 patents and has signed licensing agreements with companies including Google, Intel and Microsoft), but Lu also notes that Dashwire can use the patents for defensive purposes, not to sue others. Lu believes the deal could also help HTC launch its own mobile instant messaging services.