HTC has announced the appointment of Yves Maitre as its new CEO. Maitre, a former exec at French telecom Orange, says he will continue to grow the future of both 5G and XR as the company’s leader.

Cher Wang, who took over as company CEO in March 2015, is stepping down to continue as Chairwoman of the HTC board. HTC says she will focus on future technologies that both align with the company’s portfolio and vision of Vive Reality.

At Orange, Yves served as EVP of consumer equipment and partnerships, overseeing Orange’s connected technology strategy and business.

“Across the world, HTC is recognized for its firsts across the mobile and XR space. I am incredibly energized to grow the future of both 5G and XR alongside HTC employees, customers and investors,” said Maitre. “We will set out immediately to continue the transition from building the worlds’ best consumer hardware to also building complete services around them to make them easy to manage and deploy.”

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Maitre has held senior executive positions at Orange for over 14 years, most recently as EVP of consumer equipment and partnerships. Prior to Orange, Yves spent six years working for consumer electronics company Thomson Multimedia where he served in senior positions in the US and Singapore.

“When I took over as CEO four years ago, I set out to reinvent HTC as a complete ecosystem company and lay the foundations for the company to flourish across 5G and XR,” said Wang. “So, now is the perfect time to hand over the stewardship of HTC to a strong leader to guide us on the next stage of our journey.”

Early last year HTC sold off much of its smartphone team to Google in a $1.1 billion deal, which saw half of HTC’s smartphone R&D division transferred to Google.

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Amidst the subsequent 2018 step-down by the company’s president of smartphone and connected devices business, Chialin Chang, HTC tactically merged its smartphone and VR divisions. Since then, the company has launched PC VR headsets Vive Pro and Vive Pro Eye, and mobile VR headsets Vive Focus and Vive Focus Plus. It’s latest upcoming headset is Vive Cosmos, which is slated to launch on October 3rd, 2019.

HTC has also put an increasing investment into its digital distribution platform, Viveport, and opening it to Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets in addition to its own Vive products.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Ricardo Rowe-Parker

    Perhaps he will be more inclined to make a true partnership with a company like Valve. That would be of great benefit to them, and without trying to compete directly.

  • johann jensson

    Isn’t it a bit alarming that this happens right now when the launch of Vive Cosmos is imminent?

    • dogtato

      how so? old CEO wasn’t fired or anything

  • I wonder how he will change HTC strategy

    • Charles

      Likely first thing: cut the price of the Vive Cosmos in half. As-is, it’s dead-on-arrival.

      • Trenix

        You do realize that upgrades cost right? This is exactly why the Rift S had so many tradeoffs. Dead on arrival is a product that is being sold for less than what was put into it. Go stay with your Rift S, let the big boys play with a more premium headset.

        • Charles

          Nobody will buy the Cosmos. It’s worth no more than $300. $700 is absurd for what it is. I have an Odyssey+, and I’ve owned 8 other headsets since 2014. The Odyssey+ is under $300 now, and is much better in basically every way except slightly lower resolution – but that’s offset by its SDE filter that makes the SDE look as if the resolution were 2200p. AND, there’s probably gonna be a successor to the Odyssey+ within the next few months.

          • Trenix

            Trolling much? The Samsung odyssey+ was the ONLY headset which I returned in less than an hour. It was so absurdly uncomfortable with crappy controllers, crappy tracking, and pretty much crappy everything. The halo design was also so trash that it was very easy for the headset to lift up which distorted your view, the nose piece was painful, and light bleed right through the headset.
            Lets also not forget that it used to be $500 and having multiple cameras increases costs. Just stay with what you have. You’re not going to buy it because the Cosmos is not meant for you.

          • Mike

            WMR controller tracking isn’t as good as the Lighthouse tracking system, when outside the front cameras’ field of view. That was something I was willing to accept for the best visual quality.

            In terms of visual quality, my strong opinion is that the O+ is the best by far, as long as you don’t mind occasional black smear. Also, you may not have been aware that you have to update to the latest firmware to get rid of edge distortion, and the previous release of Windows had a bug that made WMR headsets look blurry.

            Light bleed is fixed by getting a VR Cover, which also makes it a lot more comfortable.

            You have to wear the O+ just right for it to be comfortable and to get the optimal FOV and clarity. It helps if you have someone to explain the right way – I figured it out, and everyone I’ve showed it to agreed that worked best. You have to angle it down so the earphones are only coving the tops of the ears and the nose area rests flat against the nose.

            Not sure what you meant about “multiple cameras”.

            Anyway, I think $700 is way too much for what it is. If it were OLED, maybe the price would be okay. But it’s not, and the OLED Vive Pro (headset only) is about the same price. LCD is a dealbreaker for me, after having tried hard to be okay with it. Non-OLED breaks immersion.

          • Trenix

            I shouldn’t have to try hard to use a garbage headset. The visuals of the O+ was good, but a simple move will screw it all up. I also I’m not going to buy anything extra to use a headset optimally. Also what don’t you understand about multiple cameras? O+ has two cameras for tracking, the cosmos has six. You seriously don’t get where the extra expense is coming from?

          • Nick Wallace

            Trenix, if you think this way about the Odyssey then you’re not going to like the Cosmos and I’m saying that at someone who has ACTUALLY tried it. So yeah, you should leave this sort of discussion to the “Big boys” who actually know what they’re talking about.

            Cosmos sits in a no mans land in so many ways it’s not even funny, they need to drastically drop the price for it to be competitive compared to current offerings.

          • Trenix

            You’ve provided nothing of value. Nothing suggests that the Cosmos is anything similar to the Odyssey, in any way. And even if it was, then I would gladly return it. But I wont take your word for it whatsoever. You’re as credible as a youtuber making a review to a product. High quality products wont have a reduced price. Oh and why is it that all VR websites refuse to reveal that HTC is allowing you to add eye tracking?

            The cosmos is offering everything except maybe an increase of FOV at this point.

          • Nick Wallace

            You said that a simple move of the Odyssey would screw up the visuals because of the sweet spot, Cosmos has the same problem, you mentioned about not wanting to buy extra stuff to make a headset work optimally, with the poor tracking I’ve seen in it you’ll have to buy the SteamVR Tracking Plate to get good tracking and different controllers as well.

            The Cosmos has 6 but they barely overlap so they provide better coverage but not better tracking especially compared to the Quest.

            Once again, as I said, if you feel this way about the Odyssey, then you’re not going to like the Cosmos because it’s not offering anything that much better than a Rift S for comparison but at a significantly higher price.

          • Trenix

            I would have to try it myself. If a simple movement will mess up my vision in VR, then I won’t bother. Also sure, the Oculus may have better tracking software now, but the Cosmos has the potential to out preform it as they improve their software. Potential matters, I like that a product can be upgraded. There is a difference between nice upgrades and requiring them for the product to function optimally and comfortably.

  • dota

    i am waiting for a waveguide optics based vr headset
    no more heavy than 2 times my specs
    & connects to cellphone app with USB-C data connection
    Gaming walkman
    also game streaming on it using remote servers

  • RockstarRepublic

    This just in, Jewish guy takes over asian company, product still wont do well.