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Even if some of the development costs and distribution channels were common between the Nexus 4 and the LG Optimus G, not accounting them as part of the Nexus 4 costs is dishonest accounting the costs need to be apportioned appropriately – these are part of the cost of the device.

Regardless of if the Nexus 4 was sold at cost or close to cost the low cost of the Nexus 4 has put downward pricing pressure on these ‘Nexus’ styled devices in particular. Tech enthusiasts, who are the main market for these devices, expect Google to continue subsidising these devices. At Google IO following cheer after cheer about the SGS4 ‘Nexus’ edition announcement there was a conspicuous silence when the pricing of $649 was announced.

about 16 hours ago on HTC One 'Google Edition' with stock Android reportedly in the works

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The cost of a handset is more than just the raw component cost: there’s also design & development, marketing (what little google did), cost of stocking the item, distribution.

about 24 hours ago on HTC One 'Google Edition' with stock Android reportedly in the works 2 replies

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Sixth consecutive quarter, my bad.

about 24 hours ago on HTC One 'Google Edition' with stock Android reportedly in the works

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Bong

1 day ago on Bing should have been called Bang.

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But how does it actually help HTC with their main problem, their inability to build, maintain and market a brand? It’s just more of the same, HTC agreeing to push someone else’s brand. From the Original Nexus One, to the Facebook First, to the Windows Phone 8X, to the Verizon Droid, to this One ‘Google Edition’ – these are all HTC acting as a jumped up ODM by selling someone else’s brand, rather than as a true OEM building a brand and maintaining a consistent brand portfolio.

HTC should be doing what they can to establish a strong, consistent brand that they can use to sell their own phones. I mean they flip flop their brand name seemingly from generation to generation – is it Desire, or Touch, or Evo, or HD, or One, or Desire (again)? There doesn’t seem to be a firm plan for naming their devices, and that just makes it harde to market them since they have to split their marketing dollars over each new or different brand rather than being able to push a single brand covering all their devices (see: Galaxy, or iPhone, or Lumia).

Without a strong brand to present to the US carriers they just get pushed around and forced to change the names of their handsets, or stuck with sub par pricing and marketing (see: 8X 199 on contract vs Lumia 920 99 on contract). HTC has been around as long as the other OEMs but feel closer to Huawei/ZTE rather than Samsung/Nokia in terms of brand presence.

1 day ago on HTC One 'Google Edition' with stock Android reportedly in the works 2 recommends

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The guy I responded to was talking about specs, i.e. the ability for WP to use 1080 resolution or quad core chipsets. I still don’t see how enabling support for 1080 resolution or a quad core chipset today, way outside of the schedule for their proposed flagship device, would do anything. It simply makes more sense to schedule those changes for the fall alongside the flagship device.

1 day ago on Why GDR2 will dissapoint

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I think its pretty ugly, but I guess I can see how it would fit into an AV rack.

1 day ago on Do you like the Xbox One design?

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Well looking at the broader picture there’s a lot of problems piling up. There’s been delays with the One due to HTC no longer receiving tier one status with its camera supplier, they had to switch out the mic unit because they were using Nokia’s patented unit, they weren’t able to get the phone onto Verizon for whatever reason (guessing they wanted a Droid branded unit), company morale in the US office is apparently rock bottom, and their profits have been dropping quarter on quarter for about 11 consecutive quarters.

Something like this, releasing a handset headlining another company’s brand (HTC One ‘Google Edition’) that doesn’t feature the company’s (actually now decent) Sense UI branding efforts, and will be sold off-contract at a price far above consumer expectations of a ‘Nexus’ style device (thanks to Google selling the Nexus 4 at cost), I just don’t think it will do that much to help them.

1 day ago on HTC One 'Google Edition' with stock Android reportedly in the works 3 replies 3 recommends

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It’s just the geek version of sports teams. Also it’s the previous version of geek sports teams – these days its about IOS vs Android (vs WP).

1 day ago on The Mac & The PC 1 reply 1 recommend

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HTC is in a pretty different situation to all the other OEMs though. Sony and LG are large multinationals with other divisions, RIM has enterprise services, even Nokia has old school mobile phones and NSN to fall back on. HTC only has smartphones – if they have too many bad quarters in a row (as has been happening) it starts a pretty bad snowball effect. Component suppliers start treating them as lower priority customers, carriers bully them about their handset branding (e.g. no One on Verizon), their brand cachet (what little they’ve built up) begins to degrade and its all downhill from there. They don’t have any other revenue streams to rely on, appear to have pretty damn bad management issues, are suffering from a lack of general direction and branding and marketing abilities, and have made some pretty bad investments recently to boot (beats, onlive).

I mean the One is a hell of a handset, better than the SGS4 IMO, but other than that they really don’t have anything going for them – they don’t have the marketing dollars to take on the SGS4 head on, their WP handsets are dead in the water, the First was an abject failure, and if rumours are correct they’re even moving their lower market handsets back to the Desire brand so they can’t even leverage what brand good will they build with the One. They sort of need to do something pretty drastic soon.

2 days ago on Is it a good idea to buy the One now? 1 reply 1 recommend

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Dr Dre said its good, and he’s a doctor. It’s full of science!

2 days ago on HP Envy Rove 20 is the company's stab at a giant all-in-one Windows 8 tablet 6 recommends

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It must work some sort of magic on the lay person, otherwise the brand would be gone by now.

2 days ago on HP Envy Rove 20 is the company's stab at a giant all-in-one Windows 8 tablet 1 reply

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I don’t usually grammar police, but this is a pet peeve. Bias is a noun. Biased is an adjective.

Since you’re describing The Verge, a subject, it should be be biased.

2 days ago on Please Stop Complaining about Verge Bias and Microsoft 1 reply 3 recommends

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Plus MS’ Surface RT RRP gave Asus the lattitude to price their tablet cheaper.

2 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad

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Google did damage to the pricing expectations of both Android tablets and Android Nexus smartphones. Good luck selling an Android 7" over the asking price of the Nexus 7. People’s price expectations of the Samsung ‘Nexus’ S4 were also a lot lower than the annouced $649 asking price.

2 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad

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I’m sorry, one of these companies released a product being sold at cost price for its OEMs to compete against, the other priced their product at a reasonable market rate. Which one should OEMs be grateful to again?

2 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 1 reply 1 recommend

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But both WP and Nokia’s Lumia designs are pretty distinctive, Nokia has been the majority of the advertising for WP in the past couple of years to the point that the 8X was ‘like a Lumia’. Between that and the extra exclusive features that Nokia’s added to WP I think it’s too late for HTC to try and hitch their wagon back onto WP. Besides, they don’t even have a consistent branding for WP akin to Nokia’s Lumia, they even gave up naming rights to Microsoft for the ‘Windows Phone 8X’.

2 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future

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I think its a bit too late for that now. HTC built their fortunes on Windows Mobile and then kicked them to the curb to become the OEM for the first Android handset. They don’t even have the brand cachet to offer like Nokia did.

2 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future

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Actually HTC is a very good comparison to Nokia – both Nokia pre-WP and HTC today came from pretty commanding positions in their respective markets, but have come to ruin by being heavily mismanaged with a lack of direction from the top and releasing scads of poorly branded handsets over poorly implemented R&D.

HTC may have a chance if they can implement as comprehensive an overhaul and change in direction as Nokia did, but I don’t think there’s anyone willing to chuck in a billion dollars a year to help HTC through its transition. Plus I don’t think Chou is willing to step aside until the HTC train is well and truly crash and burned.

2 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future

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It was the opposite where I’m from, on contract the 8X was one tier more expensive than the 920. Most likely a result of carrier agreements, something that Nokia has traditionally been better at than HTC.

2 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future

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The thing is cash without basic change is just delaying the inevitable. I give props to Nokia because at least when they figured that something was amiss they (eventually) had the balls to bring in someone to fix up the mess, and he identified the problem, arranged a solution, instigated wide ranging changes to the company and secured funds while he was at it, and Nokia are seeing benefits now.

A quick injection of cash via an ODM contract won’t help HTC build a brand, or learn to market effectively, or improve their carrier relations, or regain lost staff, or regain tier one status with component manufacturers. Nor will their competitors stand still waiting for them to sort out their problems. HTC has a bunch of systemic problems that are indicative of mismanagement from its higher levels down, and there was a post from an insider in the HTC article pretty much confirming this.

And that’s even assuming that Microsoft want them on board in the first place. If they did choose to make a phone MS would be better served working with one of their existing ODM partners like Pegatron rather than taking a huge risk by going with a company that is somewhat dysfunctional and doesn’t even have a brand name to offer into the deal like Nokia did.

Its sad because I’ve owned a bunch of HTC handsets from the old Dopod 810 right up until the HD7, but I just don’t see it going well for them, Surface phone or not.

3 days ago on UPDATED: Surface Phone: How Microsoft Can Push WP and Rescue HTC

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‘Issues’ is a nice euphemism for it. They had resistive touch screen tech on the 7710 in 2004 but binned it in favour of maintaining dozens of similar phones. They knew that Symbian wasn’t going to cut it in 2005, two years before the iPhone even came out, and yet kept tooling around with it for five more years. Such a waste.

3 days ago on HTC in disarray: staff departures, 'disastrous' First, and production problems cloud company's future 1 reply