Agony and HTC: How an underdog phone maker aims to reinvent itself

Agony and HTC: How an underdog phone maker aims to reinvent itself
The company will use Mobile World Congress next week as a coming-out party for its new identity as a consumer gadget and mobile-app maker. It may be the most important party it ever hosts.
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by Roger Cheng
 http://www.cnet.com/news/agony-and-htc-how-an-underdog-phone-maker-aims-to-rei nvent-itself/ February 23, 2015 5:00 AM PST
HTC's Creative Labs studio in Seattle's Pioneer
Square neighborhood is tasked with coming up with the software experience on all the company's products. James Martin/CNET

SEATTLE--I arrived in the tech-revitalized, hipster neighborhood of Pioneer Square on a crisp
December morning, eager to see HTC's Creative Labs studio and meet up with the team of designers responsible for the novel interface software that fronts the Taiwanese-maker's smartphones.
There was just one problem: I couldn't find the place.
The typical sign with a corporate logo, emblazoned in bold letters, was nowhere to be found.
There wasn't even a tiny nameplate anywhere. After a careful search, I stood before a nondescript door that was sandwiched between an Italian restaurant and a hair salon. The shops, housed in a contemporary commercial brick building, both fit in with the colorful vibe of the area, but home to a branch of a global smartphone company?
"We don't do much in the official way here," said Drew Bamford, head of Creative Labs.
Its near-invisible profile in Pioneer Square seems fitting considering HTC's history of crafting eye-catching metal-clad smartphones, like the HTC One M8, only to have them ignored in favor of
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Agony and HTC: How an underdog phone maker aims to reinvent itself

models from higher profile -- and deeper pocketed -- rivals Apple and Samsung Electronics. HTC's