Kouji Kodera, has left the company this past week. Kodera was responsible for the overall strategy of HTC product, making this departure especially notable right after the global launch of the One.
It is not just Kodera who has left the Taiwanese company in the past three months, HTC has lost a considerable number of employees in a very short time.
Recientemente Jason Gordon also dropped out, vice president of global communications for the company. Other top outings include Global Retail Merchant Manager Rebecca Rowland, Digital Marketing Director John Starkweather and Product Strategy Manager Eric Lin.
While Starkweather has landed at AT&T, Lin and Rowland have joined Microsoft (Gordon has yet to announce their entry). Why has everyone abandoned the Taiwanese company at the same time?
HTC has the headquarters of the USA based in Seattle, and from there it is commented, «Anyone who knows HTC in Seattle, does not want to go to work with them right now. They are what T-Mobile was like two years ago ", ending with the phrase "They are in free fall".
It's no secret that HTC has seen better days, in both years of the One failed in his attempt to snatch some portion of the market share held by Samsung.
It would not be a coincidence that the dropouts of this 2013 have hit hard in HTC's sales rankings disproportionately, while hardware and software design teams, led by Scott Croyle in San Francisco and Drew Bamford in Seattle, respectively, are helping keep HTC in check.
HTC First the first Facebook phone
Perhaps with the addition of new CMO Ben Ho, who came from Taiwanese operator FarEasTone at the end of last year, it could share part of the responsibility in taking the right direction in planning and strategy to follow from now on.
Morale has plummeted too due to the disastrous launch of the HTC First, the so-called «Facebook Smartphone», introduced last April. Apparently, Facebook originally agreed to its intention to release the downloadable version of Facebook Home with a significant delay, giving a period of exclusivity to the HTC First.
Instead of that, Facebook changed its roadmap and made Facebook Home available on Google Play for download in the same week that First was released. Since then rumors suggest that the HTC First is close to sudden death with very poor sales, these rumors born due to the price change from $ 99 to 99 cents in the contract with the operators. The terminal is "a disaster" as some warn.
Then comes Peter Chou, longtime co-founder and CEO of HTC. Apparently, Chou had promised that he would leave if the flagship weren't a bestseller. Members of HTC alerted Chou prior to the One's departure that there would possibly be delays in supply and manufacturing, however it was said to move forward and ignore these notices. Certainly, the One appeared with inventory problems after launch, especially the black version, which does not have the same perfect finish as the white and silver models.
Peter Chou co-founder and CEO of HTC
Those constraints appeared right at a critical point, just when Samsung was launching its Galaxy S4 around the world. If there was a comment that was on everyone's lips was the absolute domination of SamsungThe Korean giant with its own screen and processor combined with huge ad spend makes competitiveness extraordinarily difficult on Android, even as reviews have given the One fairly high scores and hit the S4 on weak points.
It is not being easy this year 2013 for HTC, with the presence of Samsung dominating the Android market, Facebook prioritizing making Facebook Home available to everyone through Google Play and Microsoft focused on Nokia. Looking the quality that the HTC One X treasures and the problems they have with the departure of important positions from the company, the existing struggle to acquire a greater share of the Android market between different companies such as Sony, LG, Samsung or Motorola seems very complicated.
Thousands of battles with the objective on the horizon to rise where exactly Samsung is positioned, dominating without forgiveness and without blinking across the planet with its range of different Android devices.
From here we wish the best to HTC And that it continues to bring out great terminals like this latest HTC One X. The more variety, we will always be the consumers who ultimately benefit.
More information - HTC M4, an HTC First without Facebook Home
Source - The Verge