For three years, Apple and Samsung have clashed on a scale almost unprecedented in business history, their legal war costing more than a billion dollars and spanning four continents. Beginning with the super-secret project that created the iPhone and the late Steve Jobs’s fury when Samsung – an Apple supplier! – brought out a shockingly similar device, Kurt Eichenwald explores the Korean company’s record of patent infringement, among other ruthless business tactics, and explains why Apple might win the battles but still lose the war.
Once you brush off the apple pie that spontaneously erupts from your monitor and get over the “Asian Samsung bad, American Apple good!”-mentality, this article has some very decent stuff in it. Worth the read.
Where is there any Asia bad, America good in this article? Do I need a magnifying glass, microscope or Thom’s brain to find it?
Hell, a good portion of the article is about how Samsung has been replaying the same playbook over and over again, with the bulk of their history focused on ripping off OTHER ASIAN companies!
Edited 2014-05-05 21:43 UTC
It is just someone projecting their reverse biases into the piece. Basically, it’s American bad, Asian good in this case.
Maybe not (explicitly?) pro American as pro apple.
It is written from Apple’s viewpoint and is not a balanced.
Apple is the good guy, Samsung is the bad guy. These two are “facts” that must be accepted face value.
There is also the suggestion that the smartphone patent war has “cost” each side… It didn’t cost them both a billion dollars. It Cost Samsung and is (to be, after appeals?) paid to Apple. Apple was the beneficiary of trying to muzzle competition in the courts and it was the ordinary punters and Samsung that lost
Muzzle competition?
Sorry but as the courts (Even in Korea) have shown, Samsung and other Android OEMs have blatantly ripped off several companies including Apple.
People hate on Apple cause they are an American company and they are number one.
And now with Samsungs earnings dropping and Googles also, people need to just get used to it, Apple is gonna be number one for a while longer.
I dunno… Apple has been steadily ripping off features from Android and others for years. Which is okay, as far as I’m concerned, as they have ripped off plenty from Apple as well. Personally, I’m happy when these companies steal each others’ ideas, esp when they improve on things and make them better.
Edited 2014-05-06 00:44 UTC
Did you even the read the article? I guess Samsung was muzzled by LG, Sanyo, Kodak, Interdigital, and the myriad other companies they have “emulated”? Please dude, stop shilling.
The first part was a description of the criminal Samsung.
The second part was a description of the angel Apple.
Samsungs crimes (like LCD pricefixing) were written down extremely detailed.
Apples crimes (like the non-poaching agreement with Google, Microsoft, ea) were a mere byline.
Samsung bribes politicians, The presidential pardon for Apples salesstop isn’t even mentioned.
Samsung copies Apple (bounceback) is mentioned, but no mention of Apples “good artists steal, great artist copy” and “new” notificaton center is in this story.
Samsung doesn’t pay for patents IS mentioned, but Apple doesn’t pay for patents isn’t mentioned.
Apples people work hard on beautiful products, Samsung is just seeing what Apple has done and imitates it.
I could go on and on and on about the enormous bias in this article. Fact is that Apple and Samsung are both horrible companies that make gigantic profits because they make great products that people love to buy and use.
(disclaimer: I am a Microsoft/Windows Phone fanboy and follow this fight from the sideline
)
I think he’s reading it this way:
Software Patents == American == Bad
The problem is that the IT sector is run by immature misfits.
Car manufacturers merely shrug if another manufacturer copies their designs. Reverse-engineering competitors is considered normal practice and no one publicly complains about it.
is for a retail giant such as WalMart or Tesco to release their own SmartPhone.
Then you have the shopper contained in your own universe.
Those who complain about ‘walled gardens’ ain’t seen nothing yet.
Everything you do will be fed right bach into WallWorlds or Tesco’s Big Data number cruncher. They will be able to control just about everything you do in your life.
The implications of this is Scary, real scary.
The boss of Tesco has just spoken about their plans to build and sell a smartphone. You can listen to the interview with him on the BBC Radio 5 ‘Wake up to Money’ podcast or via the iPlayer. IMHO he tries to gloss over the issue of what he will do with all that lovely data. He talks about giving the customer what they want. In retail speak, that translates to
Giving the customer what we the retailer can make the most margin on and with the least effort.
Personall, I think that Tesco, along with ASDA (UK arm of Wallyworld) are IMHO the worst places to shop over here and I try to avoid them as all costs.
Aldi already sell phones and operate as a virtual phone network in Australia.
That might be the case but if a reatail giant such as Tesco (who already do the same thing as you describe about Aldi in AU) were to release their own branded smartphone I’d start to get worried.
Imagine this scenario.
You walk into say a Sainsbury’s store, you might start getting messages on your phone with all sorts of offers to entice you to leave there and return to the ‘fold’ and shop at the Church of Tesco. Then if you continue to ignore them, the cost of using your phone would rise and rise until you went back.
Naturally, the phone would refuse to work with ‘Pay-by-Bonk’ in any outlet of a competitor. etc etc etc
The permutations are endless.
I guess they could even make all ‘other’ stores network blackspots. You are nothing more than a marketing pawn in their world.
Time to go back on the anti-paranoia medication.
The society shown in Minority report gets ever closer.
Is this something we really want?
I certainly don’t so can we stop the planet, I want to get off.
Remember, the things that these stores sell is NOT the product. YOU are the product.
Edited 2014-05-06 09:44 UTC
Ugh.
You are ALWAYS the product.
You’re being hysterical…
You do know that Tesco already released their own Hudl tablet last year and it sold very well (550,000 units I believe) mainly because it was cheap (120 pounds) and reasonably spec’ed (though not good enough specs for me to be interested to be honest). They included some of their own apps (Tesco groceries, clubcard, Blinkbox I think), but otherwise it was a fairly standard Android build.
As ever, I always apply the CyanogenMod test to any potential Android device I’m going to buy. If there’s a CM port to it, I at least have the chance of changing ROMs if the stock ROM is annoying or doesn’t get updated in a timely manner. The Tesco Hudl failed this test of course…
They’ll lose because they haven’t been a market leader in 20 years. Every Apple idea was a theft of Somebody Else’s idea! And iOS is 5 years behind android Now.
…Vanity Fair‘s style guide apparently mandates that initialisms have to have periods? C.R.T. and L.C.D., instead of CRT and LCD, for instance. Even C.E.O.
Really? That’s what you got from the article?
Given all the articles a little while back about how the iBooks price fixing was good for consumers because paying more results in better quality, you’d think they’d be praising Samsung’s price fixing – we surely don’t want a race to the bottom in display panels!
“Once you brush off the apple pie that spontaneously erupts from your monitor and get over the “Asian Samsung bad, American Apple good!”-mentality, this article has some very decent stuff in it.”
How exactly is this any different from the “American xxxx bad, European xxxx bad!” we see here at OSAlert?
She should have paid attemption to the aspect ratio.