
HTC, You Loser - coloneltcb
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-10-05/htc-you-loser
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Fej
I find it highly unlikely that HTC is simply a manufacturing partner. The
Pixels look too much like HTC phones, even the ones they're selling right now.

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mchahn
And I don't see how making phones for someone else is a bad thing. It shows
you know what you are doing.

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eob
The great profit margins tend to be in branding though, not OEM work. This is
a huge hurdle Taiwan's industries in general have to overcome (HTC and Foxconn
are Taiwanese), and probably part of the reason Foxconn bought Sharp.

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touristtam
Not that it cannot be done. Acer is a prime example of an OEM turning into a
full blown brand name. HTC seems to be focusing on too many thing and for the
last ten years have been feeling like they were missing something to match the
line up of other phone manufacturers.

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ensiferum
I used to live next to a HTC office building in New Taipei City. I saw the
engineers coming out at 8pm to grab some food and head back to the office. Im
sure everyone at HTC is wondering how to work the staff more than already
normal 14h a day to curb the downfall (;

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wodenokoto
Saying that HTC phones were ugly until the 1 series is judging past design by
todays environment.

Back in the early smartphone days the HTC "chin" was the talk of the town. A
bold design move that had people on the street talk about your phone. You
could recognize it from a mile away, and the owner would always be happy to
tell you that they love their chins.

The back of the HTC diamond is something we today will consider ugly and
corny, but back then it was a really cool design.

Today's HTCs are pretty, but boring and don't stand out.

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triplesec
It's a sad reality of modern business that marketing and brand are al. In
principle it's laudable that HTC seems to be brilliantly engineering (AND UX)
- led company, and doesn't value marketing and brand, but such is the world as
it stands.

I hope we don't lose the expertise-set of this company if it doesn't recover
or is taken over by, say Samsung.

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mcv
I still haven't been able to find a high-end Android smartphone that is
actually any good. I returned an HTC One after multiple repairs failed to fix
the broken microphone. Maybe marketing is the real problem with HTC, but I'm
also disappointed with the quality of the engineering of most manufacturers.

