HTC to develop cheap mobile internet devices

DigiTimes reports that HTC, maker of many smartphones and the too-little-too-late HTC Shift UMPC, has noted the Asus Eee and will make cheap little computers to steal its thunder.

HTC is developing new MID (Mobile Internet Device) products, using Intel's Atom and Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset platforms. New devices are likely to be unveiled in the second half of 2008

It also has 10 new phones coming later this year, the Taipei daily writes.

As it is, most UMPC-like handhelds are broken. High-priced portable business machines with terrible battery life and overburdened hardware, they're shoehorned to fit the whims of imaginary quasi-consumers that Intel thinks its marketing schemes can fart into existence. MID is ostensibly an attempt to fix this, but it all comes down to making them (and selling them) in such vast numbers that the core problems—price and software—are fixed by scale and a healthy market of platform-dedicated developers.

HTC to revamp UMPC strategy [DigiTimes]

[#1 posted by bardfinn , June 16, 2008 6:52 AM]

If the automobile industry can swallow Sport/Utility Vehicle fuel efficiency exemptions in US Congressional Legislation and "fart" out the Status Symbol of the Decade ...