09-19-2006, 03:30 PM
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Developer & Designer, News Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 12,959
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HTC Cuts Ties with i-mate and O2
"Until now, HTC has designed and manufactured mobile devices for a range of manufacturers -- including Dopod, O2, i-mate and HP -- but hasn't sold directly to consumers. However, a spokesperson for HTC today confirmed that the company would market smartphone devices in Europe under the HTC brand name. Also re-affirming HTC's consumer push, the Dopod buyout would put HTC in direct competition with its aforementioned customers, potentially leading to HTC designs being sold exclusively under the Dopod branding outside Europe. According to Prim Krithivasan, Director of Dopod's Regional Operator Division in ANZ & India, HTC has cut its ties with both O2 and i-mate. "O2 doesn't have the relationship [with HTC] anymore... [and] going forward the HTC relationship won't extend to i-mate."
That acquisition of Dopod is just about complete, and behind the scenes, we're seeing new partnerships being created and severed. The quote above says all, and with HTC now selling devices under its own brand, i-mate recently moving to other manufacturers (Inventec and TechFaithWireless), and some new non-HTC devices from O2 Asia being leaked, it's all becoming clear.
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09-19-2006, 04:14 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,389
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Hmm.. i think this is a good thing. Now maybe those of us in the americas will get to see some of those cool devices from asian manufactures that were never before available over here. Now that imate and o2 will be selling them. Plus we can still get the cool htc devices. 
I think this will really increase our device selection as before we only had 37 versions of the same htc device to choose from. :lol:
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09-19-2006, 04:25 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 58
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Poor i-mate and O2... They helped HTC get where they are today, and then they just turn around and dump them. Pretty bold move, and one that may come back to haunt them in the future.
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09-19-2006, 05:28 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 24
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Finally
Maybe HTC is big enough that we can have a consumer direct source for new products. I hate having to wait for my (tmo) cell provider to decide to let me be able to buy a product. And, I will emphasize that I hate having to wait for (tmo) to provide updates....the technical support really sucks when it comes to timely modifying the OS so it will work.
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09-19-2006, 07:20 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ScottC
Poor i-mate and O2... They helped HTC get where they are today, and then they just turn around and dump them. Pretty bold move, and one that may come back to haunt them in the future.
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Well, you can look at this the opposite way: HTC did this incredibly hard work in designing and building these devices when no one else in the market was doing it, and i-mate and O2 profited by buying them and slapping their logos onto them.
--janak
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09-19-2006, 08:13 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 58
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ScottC
Poor i-mate and O2... They helped HTC get where they are today, and then they just turn around and dump them. Pretty bold move, and one that may come back to haunt them in the future.
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Well, you can look at this the opposite way: HTC did this incredibly hard work in designing and building these devices when no one else in the market was doing it, and i-mate and O2 profited by buying them and slapping their logos onto them.
--janak |
Oh, absolutely. But they also did ZERO marketing in countries like the UK where i-mate, Orange and O2 spent millions promoting their devices. Now the devices are popular they simply turned their backs on them. As I said; the first decent non-HTC devices are coming to the market, and HTC will have to work very hard to stay ahead.
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09-19-2006, 08:13 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 33
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i-mate history lesson..
Here's a little tidbit of information which should shed some light on i-mate current disposition:
Jim Morrison, i-mate's CEO and founder, used to work for BT Telecom where he led a team that designed what would later become the original XDA smartphone (the one with the antenna). When BT pulled the plug on the project due to low existing and projected ROI (boy was that a monumental mistake), Jim took a select group of people with him and went straight to Taiwan on the lookout for an ODM that could manufacture the device based on his blueprints.
He ended up joining forces with HTC who at the time were nothing more than a small office with a leased assembly line from a neighboring ODM. What most people don't know is that in exchange for the blueprints to this highly promising project, HTC agreed to stay out of the Middle-East and Africa for the following 3 years, thus giving i-mate (Carrier Devices) ample time and space to create market share and acquire brand equity in the hottest emerging market without fear of competing "vendors" (i-mate isn't technically a vendor).
I give them full credit for their first year of marketing drives, branding ventures and effective implementation of widescale sales strategies. HOWEVER, if you look at their brand development beyond the first year of operations, they've been COMPLETELY riding HTC's roadmap by simply reboxing, rebranding and marking up (by more than 45% on some products!) firecrackers like the JAM (can you guess where that name came from? here's a hint, Jim's renowned to be untolerably arrogant), PDA2k, JasJar etc.. They're losing on average 1 distributor every quarter and the BlackBerry has taken away a LOT of their SMB business in the past 2 months (10,000 BBs sold in 3 months in Dubai alone!)
i-mate has one of the lowest return customer ratios in the MEA, along with a well-known marketing ineptitude and piss poor after sales support. A little more than a year ago, they went semi-public in the UK with something in the vicinity of 35% of their worth. What have they done with the ~$200m cash grab? Invested in R&D of course (sic) with the i-mate Suite (no comment. go have a look to see what I mean), a bigger office (with more empty glass offices than you can imagine) and a couple of "i-mateicized" hummers that go around Dubai collecting cheques from disgruntled distributors.
Anyhoo, lest you think this was just a rant from an insider with a penchant for i-mate bashing, I'm very anxious to see what will come of the new i-mate without HTC's excalibur, artemis, trinity and herald (don't ask :wink: . They've already made it clear that their intention is to secure exclusivity agreements with a number of ODM's throughout Asia on in-house designed products. This can of course be expected by a company who has no secure market segment, no operator relationships and a very shallow enterprise customer base. If they manage to pull off an upset and keep HTC at bay with some cool new products offerings, props to them and great for us who get access to another 10-15 new smartphone / year.
My prediction: they wait out the mandatory 2 years before cashing out their shares and Jim sets sail for Aruba with his 40 footer (yacht!) and 2 Russian promoters / merchandisers..
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09-19-2006, 08:51 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 481
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Maybe this is part of the reason Dell has been so quiet on the PDA front. As I understand, most of their products came direct off the shelf at HTC. There may have been some tension in that relationship as this has been developing, and that has held off at least any public talk of any future products.
Although I suspect the fact that making a profit isn't as easy there as it used to be is the biggest factor, and they are being sidetracked by that irritating distraction.
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09-19-2006, 09:15 PM
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09-19-2006, 10:35 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 58
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by AcidAUS
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It does? Looks to me like the same article posted in the beginning of this thread...
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