[Desire General] quicksite:
And it's frankly a little surprising to me. Makes me think that the US ad agency who sold them their new "YOU" Brand Positioning & Identity campaign, to step up the public's general awareness of the company name, vis a vis well known names like Motorola, maybe also puffed them up so much as to their quiet brilliance that their followup campaign is slated to be:

It's a major dis not only to some of their most loyal customer base for the past 6 years -- XDA-developers members -- who, long before the iPhone became the new "it" thing in mobile phones, were popularizing HTC phones and helping create the eventual huge consumer demand that has now followed, but also a big fat F.U. dis to their long term partners like Handtec.

I just spoke to a sales agent who was as straight forward as can be, and he said their company owners are pissed because even THEY can't get info from their high-up HTC reps. They have gotten the cold shoulder. He said some of the guys at handtec have been actual friends with some of the honcho HTC distributor reps in China for a very long time -- and THEY feel dissed and pissed they can't get any info.

He said it is a usual strategy for all handset manufacturers, not just HTC, but for sure including HTC, to promise x amount of stock on day X, and then fail to fulfill a good chunk of it -- with an intentional marketing strategy to create a buzz that "the phones are in such high demand HTC can't keep up with the orders; they're flying off the shelves"... Just standard business strategies. But he said they have never been squeezed this way with a 100% freeze-out.

It seems pretty clear by now that:

• There IS no technical delay or product-pull for firmware etc.

• As many suspected days ago, this is all supply chain problems

• Some of these are intentional to create a buzz and increase demand even greater withe the carriers

• The carriers are getting their stocks replenished

• It's likely, as also suspected here upthread, that the whole supply chain has been diverted to replenish carriers, and F the SIM-free market.

One piece of data that was informative: Handtec guy told me that there are only two supply chains in all of UK for HTC: (1) Carphone Wharehouse -- who supply direct to the carriers only, and (2) "Brightpoint" - unclear the exact entity, but a second wharehouse that supplies the SIM-free distributors.

So, assuming i have the spelling anywhere close to right, it would be great to have some enterprising reporter from ENGADGET or GIZMODO call them and find out "So how many truckloads of your stock from HTC have been diverted to Carphone Wharehouse?" -- and wait for the answer, and then bust their chops when they say "what do you mean?".

HTC deserves to get raked over coals for this. here they have what reviewers have called one of the first real "iphone killers" (whether legit description or not), and they are squandering all their new YOU brand identity on their new BFF, the carriers, while ****ing the most loyal buyer-base ever: XDA-developer early adopter tech freaks who have loved their phones, and helped drive their sales.

It's 4am in San Francisco. I wish I had the number of someone at WIRED or other industry heavyweight to turn this into a cautionary tale story of a rebranded company having the balls to say "we can do whatever we want, we're HTC"