“The HTC brand is increasingly gaining traction with consumers across the globe but our heritage lies in the business market,” commented Jon French, executive director, HTC UK, Ireland and South Africa. “Smartphones are increasingly connecting to business networks, creating more productive mobile workforces and saving organisations money by consolidating the number of devices traditionally used by employees. The business smartphone market represented nearly a third of the total smartphone market in 2009, according to analyst house Canalys, and is expected to grow dramatically in the coming years. With HTC Business, we are ideally positioned to help organisations of all sizes take this step.”
An early partner of Microsoft, HTC brought the first Windows Phone-based smartphone to market in 2002 and introduced the first Android-based handset in 2008. Android is now one of the fastest growing platforms in the smartphone market. As more personal smartphones connect to the business network, the business market is expected to be a key growth area for Android.
The HTC Business team will help organisations choose the most appropriate and effective mobile solution for their needs from HTC’s exciting range of handsets, including the strongest, most-diverse portfolio of Windows Phone 7 smartphones in the market. With an expected growth in the number of mobile platforms, phones and applications utlised, HTC Business will play an important role in the development and implementation of each customer’s mobile strategy.
A new website for HTC’s business customers, a technical support team and a training team will help individual businesses get the most out of their HTC smartphones. The technical support team will be on hand to help businesses set-up and integrate HTC devices into back-end IT systems through a dedicated technical support service which is available during business hours. The business training team can also support organisations at the time of roll-out to ensure a successful implementation and reduce the number of internal support calls.
Thanks to loan schemes provided by HTC’s service provider partners, HTC Business customers will be able to test a range of Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets. This will allow customers to be certain that the final HTC portfolio meets their IT and user needs before committing to any investment.
“We strongly believe that the latest generation of smartphones has finally reached a stage where we can truly speak of enabling mobile working and productivity at a reduced cost,” noted French. “Innovation and agility are two avenues through which small- and medium-sized businesses in the UK are looking to beat the current economic pressures. We are investing heavily in HTC Business and a portfolio of Android and Windows Phone 7 smartphones that is second-to-none, in order to help businesses tap into new opportunities for growth with the latest smartphone technology.”