Om Malik:
HTC was the shining star during the early days of Android. Now it is reeling under the pressure of cheap Androids, a dominant Samsung and a management disarray. It’s a damn shame, as the new HTC One is actually a nice device.
I thought it would do better than it has.
They nailed their own coffin with the utterly terrible battery life in the Evo line. It drove a bunch of people, including myself, away from HTC. Then add in mixed updates to the latest OS and you start pushing customers away.
With that said, the One is a great device [boss has one and loves it].
Thanks for the link and thanks to Om Malik. Factual reporting and good writing. Very refreshing.
That should say “hardware ecosystem”
I have to agree strongly with John that the Evo line really put people off with its atrocious battery life. I also think they just destroyed their brand by throwing out handset after handset after handset with names that really gave consumers no clue as to which one was better (e.g., Incredible, Vivid, Rezound, Sensation, Trophy, Rhyme, Hero). Samsung had the same problem, but they were quicker to follow Apple’s lead and focus on one flagship line of phones. I just think it might be too late for HTC to try and reboot their brand now that Apple and Samsung have such a stranglehold on the smartphone market.
Agreed on the names. I think Jim (or some other iOSer) mentioned it in a podcast once but they just kept throwing stuff against the wall to see what would stick.
Here in Australia, as of this morning Samsung has 32 smartphone models.
Here are the names of some of them :-
Galaxy S 4
Galaxy Express
Galaxy XCover 2
Galaxy Fame
ATIV S
Galaxy S Duos
Galaxy Ace Plus
Galaxy W
Galaxy Nexus
Galaxy Gio
Galaxy Fit
Galaxy Omnia W
How are these better than the ones you present for HTC?
I agree that Samsung also offers a bunch of different models just like HTC, but the distinction I see is that Samsung puts all their marketing behind the Galaxy S and Note series and makes it very clear that the S and Note are their premium devices, but for too long HTC marketed several of their phones in a similar way, which is very confusing to the average consumer and gives the impression that their phones are dime-a-dozen. Just from my own anecdotal experience, I have seen ads for and could name probably 4 or 5 of the HTC phones I listed (though I have no clue which ones were supposed to be premium), but I cannot recall ever watching an ad for a Samsung phone other than the S and Note.
Good article.
It’s really baffling that HTC has so many problems, when they were one of the driving forces behind the last generation of smartphones.
Nearly every Windows Mobile phone (even those by Palm, and eventually some Palm OS devices as well) were made by HTC. The quality was a breath of fresh air at the time.
Lack of justification notwithstanding, I agree with Om Malik that HTC should focus their efforts on one or two products per year. They have the necessary eye for quality and it should allow them to invest more money into the development of these products.