Apple hiring HTC engineers as they prepare to launch new iDevices in Taiwan

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Apple hiring HTC engineers as they prepare to launch new iDevices in Taiwan

After facing supply constraints during the launch previous flagship — the HTC One — we were hoping the Taiwanese manufacturer would have an easier time with this year’s model. Once again, it appears HTC might just can’t catch a break, with one of the world’s biggest smartphone makers encroaching on their home turf — and they’re hiring.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal Apple is gearing up to release more devices than ever before in Asian regions like China and Taiwan, poaching hundreds of engineers and supply chain managers from rival OEMs. This could leave HTC high-and-dry when it comes finding talent to help build upcoming flagships like the HTC M8 (One 2014).

We should point out that Apple’s hiring also affects other smaller OEMs as well, so this isn’t exclusively an HTC problem. But given HTC is an obvious source of engineering talent in Taiwan) — and the fact that Apple reportedly directly reached out to their engineers via LinkedIn — it’s easy to imagine they’d get hit pretty hard.

Seems it takes a lot more than simply coming up with a great smartphone design and cutting edge features — you gotta be able to market it, build it, and keep your people. If nothing else, this helps shed a little light on some of the hurdles smaller OEMs face when going up against manufacturing juggernauts like Samsung and Apple with near endless resources. Let’s hope everything works out in the end, we’d love to see HTC (or anyone else for that matter) put a little more heat on the big guys this year.

[via The Verge]

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