HTC had a rough year last year and they made promises to change that issue this year. They are already on a roll with the HTC One line of devices and it would seem they are ramping up content services as well. They made a sizeable investment in OnLive in February, the streaming gaming service. They took controlling stakes in Beats Audio and Beats recently acquired MOG. The latest investment is a 20% purchase of
SyncTV to help deliver more content to
HTC devices. SyncTV currently has contracts to deliver DRM protected content to a number of devices with their services. The big one for us here in the states is NBC Universal. The services from SyncTV are already available on iOS, WP, Android, Smart TVs and gaming consoles. I couldn’t seem to find anything for SyncTV in the Play Store other than a Japanese animation application developed by SyncTV. Clearly they offer the service for Android but looks to be provided by manufacturers as a build in application rather than a Play Store application.
With HTC taking up stakes around the globe from content providers, it appears they are trying to differentiate their devices in a big way. Offering things that the other can’t or don’t, all built into the Sense experience. It is a good move for them. If they can lock down more services and better content than what any other manufacturer can provide they have the potential to increase interest in their products. With SyncTV being a cross platform streaming and downloading provider of digital content it would help HTC integrate to other platforms with ease.
What do you guys think though? If HTC brings the noise with more content than what we can get in the Play Store, will it make your decision to get a HTC device a little tougher? Will Sense, no matter how slimmed down and no matter what additional services are offered still make you lean another direction? Let us know your thoughts on HTCs’ recent moves.
Source: TheVerge
