What you didn't mention
Just before Eric Lin's tweet, was his employment by MICROSOFT...
Totally un-connected of course.....
Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC is reeling after the departure of another senior executive. Chief product officer Matthew Costello has left HTC after three years in post, following at least five of the firm's top dogs out of the door. Other people to leave the smartmobe maker recently include Kouji Kodera, former chief …
In the months before I finally took the plunge with my first smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S - 3y old and now rooted) it really was down to HTC and Samsung.
HTC really was right up there with the Desire and Wildfire. I knew marginally less about smartphones back then, but I was always impressed with HTC's offerings.
As & when I change phones, it'll probably be the S3 mini - primarily due to the size and weight. I may look at one of the WinMo or Blackberry phones, but I'm comfortable with Android.
How hard can it bloody be?!
Make what people want and/or make enough & they'll buy it.
QWERTY slider of the One - will sell like hotcakes against the new Blackberrys..
Ditto lower down the range.
Do what Nokia did.. one motherboard, various options. Or vice versa.. a range of say touchscreen/QWERTY/slide QWERTY family with varying features in the same high quality case.
Advertise your quality. Samsung stuff is such plasticy dismal tat that even foxconn own brand would be embarrassed to sell it - like Nokia you've a reputation for hardware.. use it!
Most important, listen to customers. Most don't want the USS Enterprise computer Core in their pockets. They want a solid phone with good features that will last. For a reasonable price. Provide it, advertise it and they will buy..
With the exception of your characterisation of Samsung phones as "plasticky dismal tat" (all those I have seen strike me as well-built and stylish - my Note certainly is), I agree with everything you say. There is definitely a market for a slider keyboard phone with good-enough processor (though I'd still want the ability to hand-write notes, bit I'm probably in a very small minority with that!)
Also, please remind me not to do anything to make you upset - your invective is funny and effective, but I wouldn't want to be the subject of it ;-)
...at least when they were installing Win Mobile with slide out keyboards, I had two of them between 2005 and 2009, great pieces of kit and more capable than the original iPhone because they had 3G and a decent camera and Tom Tom GPS. Pity to see them slide down the toilet. To be honest, they seem to have faded away completely in recent years and Samsung are all pervasive. I have a Samsung android phone and tablet but they are plastic tat and would prefer that HTC or Nokia with decent hardware would be in the market.