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    HomeInsightsHTC to make devices available to wider market

    HTC to make devices available to wider market

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    Operators benefit from Sense "subtlety"; and Sense is not a UI, OK?

    HTC will produce Touch phones this year that target a mid-tier demographic, UK Executive Director Jon French has hinted to Mobile Europe.

    Although he would not be drawn on the details of future releases, French said that the vendor would “make sure that our products are more available to larger sectors of the market.” At the moment phones like the Touch Pro2 and the Hero are regarded as top-end smartphones. French gave a clue that the vendor would be looking to extend the reach of its device range to meet lower price points.

    French said that the vendor would be producing “more phones this year” building on the success of both the Windows-based Touch Pro2 range as well as the Androi-based devices.

    “We are equally committed to both platforms, and there is no bias,” he said. “Our relationship with each OS is equally strong. We have leadership, for example, in the business centric area with the TouchPro and we are not going to throw that away.”

    HTC has seen the Hero phone ranged by Orange, and also by T-Mobile as the G1-Touch, and French said that he expected the “subtleties” in Sense to drive additional usage of services, boosting operator revenues. It will also help operator retail sales staff at the point of sale, he said.

    “It’s why we have the tagline ‘Discover the unexpected’,” he said. “It’s so flexible that retail staff will be able to demo an experience, but the user will then go home and discover 500 other things they love,” he said.

    “Our competition often offers a one-dimensional experience,” he said. “The subtleties of our design will add to the value that operators can bring to subscribers, both in terms of their services and the applications and services that are available on the internet.”

    He added that the Sense “experience” is not, as it has been often described, a UI as such. The underlying UI is still TouchFLO, with Sense being a  “design experience, an architecture that is all about how people use the device, making their content personal to how they use the device.”