41–50 of 55 posts
A vertically integrated manufacturer does not necessarily mean their costs will be dramatically lower than the competition. For example, Apple doesn't do any manufacture themselves, and yet they have costs so much lower than the competition that they are able to define entire new markets in the time it takes for their competition to develop cost-competitive supplies. This has happened three times now, firstly with th…
"You can only call your friends (or 911) if they've got a Samsung"? I don't see that working too well. (Especially because, in the US, a call that sounds bad or doesn't go through on Samsung to X will be blamed on the Network, so the carriers will just leave Samsung (or whomever) out in the cold.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But Apple is successfully training customers that it is nice to be able to shop a simple product line. People are tired of being confused, and Apple makes it trivial to not be confused. Samsung's ubiquity game isn't going to work if the customers are sick of playing it.
Agreed. I know there's going to be an 'iPhone' for a long time to come, and I'm confident now that there'll be a peripherals ecosystem around it. I have no such confidence that any other company will keep the same model of phone around for more than a few years. Even the mighty RAZR seemed to lose the support of Motorola - RAZR, ROKR, PEBL, SLVR variations came out, and now none of them are being actively pursued - M…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I know there's going to be an 'iPhone' for a long time to come, and I'm confident now that there'll be a peripherals ecosystem around it. I have no such confidence that any other company will keep the same model of phone around for more than a few years. Even the mighty RAZR seemed to lose the support of Motorola - RAZR, ROKR, PEBL, SLVR variations came out, and now none of them are being actively pursued - M…
Knowing Apple, I have no confidence that the peripherals that work for this iPhone will keep working for the next.
Just as in Mike Elgan's analysis of Nokia, it doesn't look like Samsung have any idea how to create a sensible range of products. There are 18 touch screen phones available in the UK (out of 75 phones in total): http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/mobile-pho... If I were King of Samsung, this would be cut down to around three models. The model names would be consistent, recognisable, and the names would…
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/14/7_8b_in_parts_...
"The partnership between Apple and Samsung is expected to grow in 2011, as a new report claims Apple will become the company's largest customer with $7.8 billion in component purchases -- even as Samsung attempts to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPad with new products unveiled this week."
A vertically integrated manufacturer does not necessarily mean their costs will be dramatically lower than the competition. For example, Apple doesn't do any manufacture themselves, and yet they have costs so much lower than the competition that they are able to define entire new markets in the time it takes for their competition to develop cost-competitive supplies. This has happened three times now, firstly with th…
I like the 7" screen, are those going away?
There is one area in which Samsung is lacking: software. Unlike Apple or RIM, they are entirely dependent on Android. [...] That, however, could change completely if Samsung dominates the Android market like I think it will. Want to be even more scared? http://www.rasterman.com/index.php?page=News :-)
This is precisely the reason no one should be scared. If Samsung attempts this, they would be going up against Google on the field of software.
In contrast, I like Apple's plan better -- win on UX, customer service, marketing, and design. Those are all areas where Google is weak.
A vertically integrated manufacturer does not necessarily mean their costs will be dramatically lower than the competition. For example, Apple doesn't do any manufacture themselves, and yet they have costs so much lower than the competition that they are able to define entire new markets in the time it takes for their competition to develop cost-competitive supplies. This has happened three times now, firstly with th…
Interesting, I thought Apple didn't know they would get such a hit with the iPad? They had gotten options on production? I assumed the problem was developing something that could compete with the software (which might have happened with Android 3?). Edit: My problem with Samsung is abandonware -- drivers, etc -- but I don't know if they are worse than others.
The author never gives proof that Samsung "controls" any of the important components of a smartphone. Don't they merely license their chip designs from ARM, Qualcomm, etc? Is their screen technology based on in-house IP or are they basically commodity manufacturers of new technology? In the absence of these arguments, this article felt like fluff from someone that's seen the word "Samsung" on the BOM for a few phones.
Also, a company's manufacturing and distribution prowess has almost nothing to do with their ability to create a popular consumer software platform. See: Nokia. The only reason Samsung can be mentioned is that they've rapidly adopted Google's operating system. Surmising that they could fork Android is as absurd as imagining that Dell or Asus could alone create a Linux distro that could compete with Windows.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I know there's going to be an 'iPhone' for a long time to come, and I'm confident now that there'll be a peripherals ecosystem around it. I have no such confidence that any other company will keep the same model of phone around for more than a few years. Even the mighty RAZR seemed to lose the support of Motorola - RAZR, ROKR, PEBL, SLVR variations came out, and now none of them are being actively pursued - M…
Knowing Apple, I have no confidence that the peripherals that work for this iPhone will keep working for the next.
[1] "Has been" because it has been a while since I've written anything at that win api layer and I'm assuming it has been cleaned up a lot since they now virtualize access to old APIs.