HTC to provide ‘Over The Air’ ROM updates?

“Smith Micro Software, Inc. announced today a global licensing agreement with HTC (High Tech Computer) to preload and distribute the Insignia Mobile Device Management client on the next generation of HTC smartphones for consumers and business users worldwide…The Insignia Mobile Device Management client supports file updates, compressed image updates and multiple sequential updates all in one package and is backed by a broad range of integrity checks to ensure the process is secure and 100 % fault tolerant, even during power outages.”

Nice to see HTC doing something about this – although properly speaking, this really ought to be Microsoft’s responsibility. Which immediately brings up the question – what’s so wrong with the MS solution built into WM6, that HTC feels it necessary to shell out licensing fees for a 3rd party service? There may be a jurisdictional aspect to this, in that HTC is seeking to provide an avenue for device specific fixes that aren’t part of the general OS, but WM really ought to have the flexibility to do both. Hopefully, that’s something we might see with WM7, though considering HTC’s move when WM7 is nearly round the corner makes me none too confident that will happen. In any case, it looks like ROM upgrades won’t be as painful as they were in the past, and closer to the model used by most ‘dumb’ phones today.

Posted by: Max

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, HTC, OTA, ROM Updates]