| HP farms out manufacture of iPAQ Pocket PC |
Feb. 26, 2003
Under a little-known manufacturing arrangement, Hewlett-Packard Co. is farming out the assembly of its popular iPAQ Pocket PCs to the Taiwanese electronics house High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC).
HP, which likes to trumpet its leadership position in Pocket PC technology and sales, hasn't been hiding this fact, but it isn't proactively publicizing it either.
The relationship appears to be beneficial to both companies on an ongoing basis.
HTC, which was started up in 1997, has gained growing credibility as a smart-device design house. HTC was a partner with Compaq in the team of companies which designed the original iPAQs introduced in 2001. (Compaq was acquired last year by HP, which now sells the iPAQ under its own name.) Also part of the design team was Microsoft, which provided the systems software and Intel, with its XScale processors.
More recently, HTC has gained widespread recognition as the designer of the Orange SPV Smartphone, marketed in Europe by wireless carrier Orange.
For its part, HP has turned iPAQ into the Pocket PC market leader. HP currently holds the top slot among Pocket PC vendors, shipping 1.6 million units in 2002, according to a recent market research report by Dataquest.
In a statement released today discussing its corporate revenue results for first 2003 fiscal quarter, HP noted: "During the fourth quarter [of 2002], HP introduced several innovative products including ...two new HP iPAQ Pocket PCs. HP also achieved a significant milestone in handhelds, reaching the 3 million unit sales mark."
Nearly two years ago, HTC and Compaq first outlined their joint working relationship in a press release entitled, "Compaq, Intel, and Microsoft joined HTC to Open HTC's New Manufacturing Facility."
The statement said, in part: "High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC) today [April 24, 2001] opens its brand new headquarter and manufacturing facility at Taoyuan, Taiwan. HTC president H.T. Cho hosted the grand opening ceremony. Several industry leaders, which included Compaq, Intel, and Microsoft, had sent executives to attend the ceremony, signifying the close strategic relationship between HTC and other leading players in this exciting wireless mobile computing frontier."
Compaq's Jack Baikie, vice president of corporate procurement, was quoted in that release: "Building on a strong partnership with Microsoft, Intel, HTC and Compaq we designed, built and delivered a truly successful product that has become the standard for Wintel Handhelds and redefined what a PDA should be for enterprise users. Since the launch of this product, the iPAQ Pocket PC has created unprecedented demand and Compaq and HTC have been focused on increasing our mutual abilities to provide adequate supply to our customers. HTC shipped a record 100,000 iPAQ Pocket PCs [in March, 2001] and we're embarking on an aggressive plan with the opening of this new facility to continue to increase production capacity that will enable us to better meet this extraordinary customer demand."
--Alexander Wolfe, WindowsForDevices.com
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