Taipei-based HTC is emerging from the shadows of original design manufacturer (ODM) activity, in which it provided white-label smart phones to operators such as Orange and T-Mobile to drive awareness of their own brands. Last year it began marketing a new generation of devices in Europe and Asia under its own brand and the deal with Sprint Nextel represents a foothold in the all-important US market.
HTC is the largest smart phone manufacturer to have opted for a 100% Microsoft strategy. Nokia is a shareholder in Symbian and bases its enterprise devices (the Eseries) on that OS, as does Sony Ericsson; both Samsung and LG have a mixture of Windows Mobile and Symbian phones and Motorola uses both those OSes as well as developing a Linux strategy.
