Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
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Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#2The article opens: "Is there anything Samsung doesn’t do?"
I say: "Is there anything Samsung doesn't clone?"
This is shameless: http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/18/family-ties-earn-this-smart-co...
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#3Don't know if it's really conquering, but here's a trend that I've seen:
In the past, American products were regarded as the best and Made in USA meant quality. Next were Japanese products and consumer electronics. Starting 5-10 years ago, I began to see the well-regarded brands like Sony and Toshiba become more of a boutique brand (overpriced compared to what it offered) as they focused more on style than functionality. Most recently, products from China and Korea-based companies (Haier, Samsung, LG, Hyundai) have started to become more mainstream.
This just shows that there will always be up-and-coming competitors who will out-hustle, out-engineer, and out-build the previous market dominators if they don't keep innovating and staying fresh. The smaller competitors, given enough time, will catch up.
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#4That solar netbook is $USD372.94 (Sh35,000). 14 hour battery (1 hour noon sun gives 0.5 hour worth of battery life), 1.3kg, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 1.3 GHz atom (single or dual), 10' screen. http://global.samsungtomorrow.com/?p=4768
Presumably, an ARM-based solar netbook would have even longer battery life. But the (netbook) apps aren't there yet, and aren't coming, so they stay with x86 and Windows.
btw: the kindle, with passive E-ink, has 2 months battery (i.e. over x100 longer)
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#5Don't know if it's really conquering, but here's a trend that I've seen: In the past, American products were regarded as the best and Made in USA meant quality. Next were Japanese products and consumer electronics. Starting 5-10 years ago, I began to see the well-regarded brands like Sony and Toshiba become more of a boutique brand (overpriced compared to what it offered) as they focused more on style than functional…
Samsung is really good at producing knockoffs:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392106,00.asp
After all, they manufacture tons of components that go into these devices. It's not hard to take a part that someone else designed and stamp your own brand on it.
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#6Don't know if it's really conquering, but here's a trend that I've seen: In the past, American products were regarded as the best and Made in USA meant quality. Next were Japanese products and consumer electronics. Starting 5-10 years ago, I began to see the well-regarded brands like Sony and Toshiba become more of a boutique brand (overpriced compared to what it offered) as they focused more on style than functional…
I don't know if there will "always" be up-and-coming competitors. There are only so many third world countries left to come up and "always" is a very long time. Hopefully, there are many models for "coming up", since making cooler gadgets probably won't work for everyone.
Of course, one could make the argument that current first world countries will decline to the point where they can begin to compete on price just as the up-and-comers begin to charge more. It's already happening, to a limited degree, in autos. Some manufacturing has come back to the US in places where wages and taxes are low. The recent economic downturn has caused quite a few kinds of work to return to the US, including manufacturing that was taking place in China.
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#7Samsung is a pretty strange company overall, perhaps more comparable to one of the sprawling late-19th-century industrial conglomerates than anything in the current U.S. business landscape. It not only has a huge array of businesses it officially owns (from computers to shipbuilding), but is part of an unofficial, even larger conglomerate, the "Samsung family group", consisting of the other companies the family controls.
It's also been pretty deeply intertwined with the Korean government at various times, along with the other two big family groups (LG and Hyundai), who it sort-of competes with and sort-of has a cozy relationship with. All that actually makes it somewhat remarkable that it's coming up with interesting tech; that kind of company is not usually nimble.
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#8Samsung is a pretty strange company overall, perhaps more comparable to one of the sprawling late-19th-century industrial conglomerates than anything in the current U.S. business landscape. It not only has a huge array of businesses it officially owns (from computers to shipbuilding), but is part of an unofficial, even larger conglomerate, the "Samsung family group", consisting of the other companies the family contr…
Those are referred to as Chaebols in Korea, in Japan they're called Keiretsu (pre WWI these were Zaibatsu). I think the family ownership involved in the Chaebols somewhat helps them remain innovative. You have a centralized force that can guide the ship during particularly important junctures in history.
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#9The article opens: "Is there anything Samsung doesn’t do?" I say: "Is there anything Samsung doesn't clone?" This is shameless: http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/18/family-ties-earn-this-smart-co...
A: Not a Samsung product. B: Nothing is new under the sun: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/03/apple-ipad-2-smart-cover-...
Re: Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world
#10Don't know if it's really conquering, but here's a trend that I've seen: In the past, American products were regarded as the best and Made in USA meant quality. Next were Japanese products and consumer electronics. Starting 5-10 years ago, I began to see the well-regarded brands like Sony and Toshiba become more of a boutique brand (overpriced compared to what it offered) as they focused more on style than functional…
I don't know if there will "always" be up-and-coming competitors. There are only so many third world countries left to come up and "always" is a very long time. Hopefully, there are many models for "coming up", since making cooler gadgets probably won't work for everyone. Of course, one could make the argument that current first world countries will decline to the point where they can begin to compete on price just a…
I know I'm venturing a bit off topic, but...
From what I've seen, 5 years is about the amount of time for major changes in trends to take place. A lot of companies can rise and fall in 5 years, which is the same amount of time it takes for a startup to come out of nowhere and then dominate the scene.
We haven't really seen China and India explode yet. I would even dare to say that a lot of people on HN haven't taken a close look at Chinese websites. Rhygar's comment not only applies to Samsung, but a lot of other companies we haven't even heard of in other countries. There are Chinese travel websites (e.g. qunar and huochepiao), auction sites (taobao), search engines (baidu), social networks (renren), made by really smart engineers who understand their local markets and cost a fifth to a third of what US software engineers cost--and when those companies make boatloads of cash in their own country, guess where they will start pushing out to?
I laughed when I went to Shanghai several years ago and saw all the urinals and toilets in the airport with the American Standard brand. Now, I see a lot of Toto (Japanese) branded toilets in American restaurants and public restrooms.