The Engadget Interview: Peter Chou, CEO of HTC
If you were to make a shortlist of Engadget's most sought after executives, Peter Chou, CEO of the most advanced cellphone manufacturer in the world, HTC, would be right near the top. We finally got a chance to sit down with the man …
Context & Ripple Effects
The sit-down lands at the tail of a heavy quarter for HTC: a Q4 portfolio of three new Windows Mobile devices announced in October, the TyTN II crossing to the US as the AT&T Tilt, and strong first impressions for the Shadow. Days earlier, the quasi-UMPC HTC Shift had missed its planned November release, leaving HTC announcing a January 11th UK launch date just before Chou faced questions.
For Engadget, the get carries extra weight: Fortune had framed its rivalry with Gizmodo as a tabloid-style scoop war, so landing the CEO of what the outlet calls the most advanced cellphone manufacturer in the world is a competitive prize as much as a news one.
First-order effects
- Chou gains a direct, unfiltered channel to the enthusiast audience that actually buys and reviews HTC hardware — valuable precisely because the Shift's slipped schedule put HTC's holiday-quarter narrative under scrutiny.
- Engadget converts executive access into differentiation against Gizmodo at the height of the rivalry Fortune profiled in early November 2007.
Second-order effects
- Rival gadget blogs are pushed to chase equivalent interviews with handset chiefs, making exclusive CEO access a recurring currency in the enthusiast-press arms race.
- HTC's carrier partners — AT&T most recently with the Tilt — see the maker building its own brand voice alongside theirs, shifting some of the messaging burden away from operator channels.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, handset makers will treat enthusiast blogs as a primary communications channel alongside carriers and trade press — a structure that favors manufacturers like HTC whose 2007 cadence (the Q4 Windows Mobile trio, the Tilt, the Shadow) supplies a steady stream of reviewable hardware.
The trend: Device makers are turning enthusiast blogs into a primary PR channel, with exclusive CEO access becoming contested ground between rival gadget publications.