While arguably one of the best smartphone manufacturers in the market, and certainly one of the most successful, HTC has been taking flak from all sides, and by flak we mean its been getting sued by Apple and strong-armed into patent deals with Microsoft. These attacks stem from its use of Google’s open source Android operating system. Though the OS has helped propel HTC to the top, these attacks threaten to greatly hurt the company’s bottom line. As such, it comes as little surprise that HTC may want to try purchasing its own OS. FocusTaiwan reports that HTC is, at the very least, considering owning its own operating system.
“We have given it thought and we have discussed it internally, but we will not do it on impulse,” said HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang, speaking with the Economic Observer of China.
But then again, maybe not. Wang also says that one of HTC’s strengths is that it knows how to wrap different operating systems with its own user interface: “We can use any OS we want. We are able to make things different from our rivals on the second or third layer of a platform. Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean that we have to produce an OS.”
Ever since Google announced the acquisition of Motorola and HP announced that it was discontinuing WebOS devices, rumors have been flying about the future of Android developers like HTC and Samsung, who have had a lot of success with Android, but also taken a lot of hits from rivals like Apple. Any company could potentially scoop up WebOS and Samsung has already begun beefing up development of its Bada operating system, mostly sold on lower-end devices.
