HTC announces $35 million investment in Magnet Systems

Despite the fact that HTC is currently going through some financial difficulties, it has made a $35.4 million investment in Magnet Systems. The investment in the US-based start-up is also apparently bringing a shift in strategy for HTC, as it will likely begin to focus on the enterprise market after this deal. The investment was revealed in Taiwan Stock Exchange filing made by HTC.

That $35.4 million nets HTC a 17.1% stake in Magnet Systems, a deal which the company points out will “bring social, mobile, and cloud capabilities to HTC’s portfolio.” HTC is apparently aiming those new capabilities directly at enterprise customers, with Gartner analyst CK Lu telling PCWorld that HTC sees an opportunity to capitalize on the gap left in the enterprise market by RIM, which has been on the decline for some time now. Lu also says that we may soon see more Android and Windows Phone manufacturers look to break into the enterprise market like HTC is doing.

Trying its hand at enterprise might not be a bad idea, since HTC is currently struggling with the consumer market. It wasn’t always this way for HTC, but with Samsung on the rise, the company is having a difficult time keeping up. That’s thanks to a number of bad investments too, with HTC recently announcing that it lost a $40 million investment when OnLive sold off its assets last week. Not good, especially for a company that was already experiencing a financial rough patch.

So, now we’ll see how HTC performs in the enterprise space. It’s unclear exactly how HTC will use Magnet Systems – which offers an app to make coordination within sales teams easier – in the enterprise market, but it’s pretty obvious that HTC is eager to jump in. Let’s just hope that this investment works out well for HTC, because the company can’t take too many more financial hits.