Trouble at HTC? Two Execs Resign

This year saw the release of the HTC One M8, one of the most talked-about Android smartphones to come out in some time. All that talk seems to have helped steer the company’s finances in a better direction, but that doesn’t mean everything’s peachy keen: a new report on Bloomberg says that two high level HTC executives have resigned, raising questions as to where the company will be heading next.

The report explains that Chief Marketing Officer Ben Ho and President of Engineering and Operations Fred Liu have stepped down from their positions, the latter having been with HTC for the last 16 years. A follow-up report on Engadget says that Ho will stay on with the company through the end of the year, though the company’s chairwoman Cher Wang will take over his marketing duties.

Another post on the subject, this time on the Verge, cites an insider who says that the two execs aren’t actually resigning, but rather are being “fired in a nice way.” Which, you know, sounds not so nice, but okay.

Meanwhile, the Engadget post says that HTC will soon be launching some wearable devices in the next few months. Furthermore, there have been more than a few reports about how HTC might be the OEM behind Google’s next – and possibly final – entrants in its Nexus tablet device line.

So are these resignations, or “nice firings,” signs that HTC is scrambling for new leadership in the face of new products? Or perhaps these are punitive moves taking place because of the difficulties the company’s seen over the last several years prior to the M8’s release?

Either way, we’ll know more about HTC’s situation over the next few months. If the next Nexus is, indeed, coming from HTC, that should be a nice shot in the arm for the company’s bottom line, as well as its reputation among Android fans. And if it jumps into the wearables game, perhaps running Android Wear, it could surprise everyone by out-cooling the hotly anticipated Moto 360.

[Sources: Bloomberg, Engadget, the Verge]