Taiwan-based smartphone and tablet PC maker HTC acquired Dashwire, a cloud computing software company, last week. 

The acquisition, valued at US$18.5m (NT$536m), will help build HTC's cloud computing cellphone development strategy, according to the company according to a report by Mobiledia.

Under terms of the acquisition, Dashwire will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of HTC. 

The purchase is the company's second US acquisition this summer, following the purchase of a controlling stake in California's chipset maker S3 Graphics from VIA Technologies in early July.

HTC is pursuing an aggressive cloud computing strategy to compete with mainland Chinese rival Huawei, which recently announced its intention to launch a cloud computing cellphone handset. It also faces competition from US competitors Google, Amazon and Apple, all of which have either launched or intend to launch mobile cloud services this year. 

By purchasing foreign companies with proprietary technology, the company hopes to avoid the legal battles that have cost the company in the past, such as recent patent disputes with Apple.

Dashwire makes the Dashworks platform, which provides mobile and web applications that enable users to setup and personalize smartphones for use of software and content across multiple services. The Dashworks platform is currently supported on Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Symbian operating systems;the former two of which are the primary operating systems for HTC's smartphones.

HTC President of engineering and operations Fred Liu said HTC customers want access to all of their important content wherever they are, on any device 

"Dashwire's cutting-edge sync services and deep mobile cloud experience strengthens our ability to deliver these services in a more powerful way,"Liu said.