HTC’s slogan is “quietly brilliant.” Maybe not so much longer.
The company, which has sought to move from a pure hardware OEM to a more recognized consumer brand, has acquired Abaxia, a French software company that specializes in mobile software development. The company basically has three products: a mobile portal, an idle-screen platform and search capability.
The firm was founded in 2001. The transaction was valued at $13.2 million (Euro 11 million). The press release is fairly direct about the motivation behind the acquisition:
“HTC is committed to creating the best possible mobile experience for our customers today, tomorrow and into the future,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “The addition of Abaxia deepen and broaden our software development capabilities so that we can innovate at an even faster pace.”
“HTC and Abaxia have worked closely together in the past and our businesses complement each other well,” said Cedric Mangaud, CEO of Abaxia. “We’re excited to be joining such a significant and emerging mobile brand.”
All of this signals an effort to create a more differentiated (and consistent) user experience across Android and maybe Windows (7) Mobile handsets. This consistent user experience, now in the form of Sense, is a branding and loyalty play.
Among all the Android OEMs the central challenge is how to differentiate from one other given the common software foundation and the very similar hardware designs. HTC thinks it has found the answer in software — and it may well be correct.
HTC and Motorola are vying for Android leadership and HTC may turn out to have the edge in the end.