HTC promises to come back!
There's quite a few mobile phone companies who are facing a tough time at the moment. The most obvious two are RIM and Nokia, but HTC is having a bit of a crisis at the moment after they lost all moment half way through last year when they released a huge group of decidedly average device. Unfortunately HTC's One Series wasn't quite good enough to steal mindshare back from Samsung and Apple; there were issues with small battery capacities in the One X and some dodgy ceramic work on the One S.
It's been reported today that the companies chairman has sent out an email to all their employees in a bid to rally the troops! Chou has laid out how his company needs to “kill bureaucracy” while improving communication; “We have people in meeting[s] and talking all the time but without decision, strategic direction or sense of urgency. Bureaucracy crept in without clear ownership. We agreed to do something but we either didn’t do it or executed it loosely.”
He continues on to comment on his disappointment that the company’s sales have fallen despite the huge growth in the overall smartphone market. “Our competitors can leverage their scale, brand awareness and big marketing budget to do things which HTC could not do. The fast growth from the last two years has slowed us down.”
But fear not Chou is confident in the company and promises “We are coming back.”
In other news:
- It's been reported today that Amazon's updated Kindle Fire has slipped through the FCC so hopefully we'll be hearing some sort of official announcement soon!
- Nokia has today reiterated their commitment to Windows Phone 8 and Stephen Elop didn't deny that the company could announce a new set of devices on September 7th, so not too long to wait now!
- Netflix has expanded their service to Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland!
- Samsung Vs Apple: Today Samsung has argued that Apple's designs are always 'obvious' and so they should not be patentable, we'll see whether people agree with that, it seems reasonable.
- Adobe has confirmed there will be no more Flash releases for Android, only security updates and from today you won't be able to install a copy on any devices that don't have it! Unless, that is, you have such a huge desire to find the APK and install it yourself from 'untrusted sources'.
- LG has managed to sell 5million LTE phones worldwide in the last few years! Not bad going now all we need is some updates LG!
And finally is this 5.5" (14cm) screen and bezel combination that of the upcoming Galaxy Note 2? Keep it locked here for all the news from IFA as it happens!
