It's all part of the google strategy. Release the moto X just before September and then release a much better phone for 50-150 more in the nexus 5 one or two months later.
I lol'd.
I was chatting to a mobile industry guy yesterday, he said Sony, Samsung, Motorola and HTC are all in a complete mess right now, but he has some faith that Sony and Samsung will get through but he doesn't see Moto and HTC existing as they do right now two years from now. I can agree with that policy.
The problems break down like this:
Samsung - Worried about reliance on Google, took their eye off the ball, too many S4 branded products undercutting S4 proper margins (the mini range specifically has been quite bad for them because people think they are getting a small S4 for half the cost) and causing confusion. No Android tablet strategy, the Note 10.1 is still their best selling tablet.
Sony - No good premium strategy, no real tablet strategy, terrible marketing, no real US presence and their 12-month deal with T-Mobile will mean no i1 on AT&T which is ridiculous and it took them four fucking months to get the Z out onto T-Mobile. T-Mobile wanted it by the end of April but Sony couldn't get their house in order.
HTC - Fucked in basically every way. Sales of the One have got so bad in Asia and Europe that they are worried about the future of the company and the One Mini is having massive production issues on the pilot assembly line and some of the parts are extremely scarce. They rushed out the Butterfly S in response to falling sales of the One in Asia. It is literally just the Butterfly with S600 and the new camera module. So far the response has been tepid, but they hope it will improve going into Q4.
Moto - Massive infighting with Google over the line up, they see themselves as a premium player and want their phones to compete with the iPhone, Galaxy S, Xperia Z and HTC One. Google think the parent would be better served with Moto being a commodity player, almost an extension of the low margin Nexus business model. Moto think that this will be detrimental to Android and to Moto. The Moto X is going to be like a bastard child at Moto according to the dude, he said they aren't proud of it, they wanted to make an iPhone competitor and ended up with a ZTE/Huawei competitor.
That's pretty much a round up the major Android OEMs. He told me some interesting stuff about Nokia as well, confirmed that they are sticking with WP for better or worse because Elop knows his time at the company is up the second they start building an Android device.
