“keep your eyes on HTC!” – Carrypad.
Hopefully you’ve seen the news of the Seattle Times HTC interview. HTC confirmed that they will be putting together a team of designers in the U.S. for Ultra Mobile devices. Its about time they said something. I was beginning to worry that predictions were wrong. (You might find a few references to them here if you look carefully 
“One likely scenario is that HTC will start moving efforts into the UMPC business. It would certainly make sense for HTC and VIA” – Carrypad
There’s a couple of very important things to consider in relation to the latest HTC news. Firstly, There’s the VIA Ondemand media distribution network. VIA and HTC are practically the same company at the top level (family connections.) and they are very close to Microsoft. Read this article about VIA Ondemand. Secondly, there’s the Microsoft virtual mobile operator business and .zZUNEZz… Could Microsoft, HTC and VIA get together to build a virtual mobile operator running VIA Ondemand media software on HTC ultra mobile PC’s and next-gen .zZUNEZz.? Read this article.
“We’ve also had an anonymous comment stating that HTC is indeed trying to get into the UMPC market.” – Carrypad
Now that the design team is being formed close to the Microsoft head offices, I’m starting to realise that this scenario is a possibility. What I’d really love to know though is more detail about the .zZUNEZz. music sharing Media Transfer Protocol. Could it have integration capabilities with the Ondemand P2P protocol – a secure P2P-based system based on Acegain’s DRAMA grid architecture. (According to this PDF.) Maybe there’s a few .zZUNEZz. fans out there that could help me out on this one. If it is, I better upgrade my server. If not, well, it was a nice idea.
“HTC are the sister company to VIA and are in a very good position to be able to produce a UMPC.” – Carrypad
Toshiba may be manufacturing the current .zZUNEZz. but will the next product come from HTC and be a Windows Mobile 6 enabled PMP/UMPC?
“HTC must have something new under development.” – Carrypad
Via’s OnDemand
“HTC and VIA are well-positioned to bring UMPC’s to the market via mobile carriers” – Carrypad
Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace
Whatever happens, I think it’s time now for me to stop taking the Mickey out of … one last time..zZUNEZz…and start paying attention. Maybe I’ll be as excited as the other crazy Zunesters at the release of the next Zune product. I’ll put a Zune tag in this post just to mark my place!
“I’ll be watching HTC very closely. I have a gut feeling about them.” – Carrypad.
Steve / Chippy
(via Engadget from The Seattle Times.) Thanks to JKK for the tip.
