The latest development on the recent HTC saga reveals that Thomas Chien, the arrested ex-VP of Product Design, was possibly lured by the Chengdu municipal government to set up a phone company in China. According to Taiwan's Next Magazine (pictured above by sister publication Apple Daily), Chien flew to Chengdu several times in the first half of this year, which got HTC suspicious since it doesn't have any direct business there.
The alleged offer was that if Chien left HTC with some of the technology plus some money, then the municipal government would -- through another company it set up -- take care of the remaining costs for opening the factory, production and marketing. Previous reports say while still at HTC, the ex-exec had e-mailed some confidential Sense 6.0 files to external contacts, but there's no confirmation on whether those people are linked to the Chengdu government.
Filed under: Misc, Mobile, HTC
Via: Reuters
Source: Apple Daily (Chinese), UDN (Chinese), ET Today (Chinese)