Dopod to assume HTC name in JulyIn an aside with CNET Asia, Peter Chou, CEO and president of High Tech Computer Corp, told us the regional Dopod offices in Asia will take on the name of HTC come July.
The bigger challenge, as Bryan Ma, IDC's director for Asia-Pacific Personal Systems Research, pointed out, is to get the branding recognized in the mass market. Fortunately, the company already has some scale that it can leverage on from its European operations. Liang added that HTC will remain the leader in the Windows Mobile space even though there are more Asian makers joining the fray, with competitors such as AsusTEK, Quanta and HP trying to gain market share with lower prices. As an ODM for HP and Palm, HTC also manufactures handhelds for Dopod and other operator-branded devices. Following this announcement, Chou expects to see an increase in the number of HTC-branded products this year. According to a reliable source, consumers can look forward to the first HTC-branded handheld in early June. This comes before the renaming of Dopod offices that's scheduled in July. When CNET Asia questioned if there would be any future products or services under the Dopod branding, Chou didn't deny such a possibility, though he said most handhelds will bear HTC's marquee. HTC will also continue to provide service and support for all existing Dopod devices. In Asia excluding Japan, IDC figures reveal that Windows Mobile users represent 8.5 percent of the smart handheld devices (these include standalone PDAs, PDA-phones and smart phones) in 2006. The Symbian platform has a stronger showing of 72 percent, with the operating systems such as Linux, BlackBerry and Palm taking up the rest of the pie. High Tech Computer Corp currently has 4,904 employees worldwide with 1,245 of them involved in research and development (as of May 2007). The company plans to grow R&D investment from US$89 million in 2006 to over US$100 million this year and, at the same time increase, its R&D workforce to more than 1,500 employees from 1,367 in the previous year. "Microsofts partnership with HTC will play an important role in our continued growth and we look forward to working together with HTC to launch innovative smart phones powered by new Windows Mobile 6 operating system across Asia Pacific and Japan," said Jason Lim, regional director for Asia Pacific and Japan, Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft Corp. O2 has declined to comment on the acquisition and we were unable to reach HP and Palm at the time of writing. John Chan from CNET Asia contributed to this report.
| ||||
HTC's product lineup for Q1 2007.- Talkback
-
There are currently no comments for this story.
To post comments, you need to become a member. It's FREE.
