HTC Came to the Dance with Windows Mobile but left with Android

Strapped to Android, HTC Takes a Dizzying Ride to the Top

Here’s a couple of bullet points pulled from the article that I didn’t know until reading it:

– 1 in 6 smartphones in the US in 2008 was an HTC phone (wonder what that number is for 2009?)
– HTC is 4th largest smartphone maker after Nokia, RIM, and Apple
– I knew that HTC built the first Compaq iPaq. However, I didn’t know it was also HTC first product

It is not mentioned in Wired.com’s article, but I believe that the first HTC phone in the US was the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition (still have mine). I believe it was also the first smartphone in the US with a touch screen.

As the article notes, HTC has hitched its wagon to Android and has had what looks like some reasonable sized sucesses so far. However, it doesn’t really discuss how HTC rose to prominence as the often faceless designer behind some of the best phones running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. And, more importantly, with HTC apparently way beyond the courting stage with Android, where does this leave the more-or-less jilted Microsoft? Looking at the HTC Touch Pro2 I bought in August, I wonder if some of its odd design choices (like leaving out critical keys from the keyboard) was an intentional slight and a hint that it is not serious about Windows Mobile now.