Samsung vs Apple

It's sure turning out to be a clash of the titans now.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/26/samsung-2011-q4-earnings-official-billion-in-revenue-4-6-bi/

One of the biggest corp rivalry has been shaping up good. Interesting aspect is the comparable revenue numbers but a large difference in profits. Samsung has few things that don't go in favor of them:

Market:
- Apple has an established brand name and doesn't need to create a market. Samsung subsidizes it's phones to generate market.
- Samsung has to cater the needs of a wide segment to gain a larger market share to make profits. Investments and RnD needed to support multiple devices is immense and also non-focused.
- Samsung has a foray into many other market segments including consumer electronics and displays. While these divisions don't make big margins when compared with mobile segments, may be some stroke of genius would propel them in the big league. Perhaps Samsung is working on it right now.

System:
- Apple devices and software are built in a closed environment with tight integration across designers. Samsung customizes the open-source Android system to suit its devices. This causes an overall system degradation causing stability and support issues.
- Even though Google and Samsung are closer than ever and better co-designing their products, it will take some time for this collaboration to mature whereas Apple has it's design machine running like a clockwork since long.

Investments:
- Apple needs to focus it's investments on a limited product set. Samsung's ambitions and presence in different markets makes the RnD investments and costs into these areas inevitable.

Mindset:
- Apple has moved it's manufacturing operations to very low cost and flexible Foxconn with cheap skills and expansion available at the drop of a hat. Samsung doesn't have this option perhaps because of its commitment towards the job creation and country's progress. It cannot move to low cost destinations.

In a nutshell, while Samsung can arguably overcome few of the above problems, the problem of not being able to cut down on labor costs would remain. Perhaps Samsung considers it as a necessary baggage and has learnt to live with it.

Now, it tries to focus on growing and expanding it's horizons through core technical and price advantage. Steve Jobs' demise would have sure dented the iFans club and this quarter could be an indicative of a sympathy wave, but Google's image and Samsung's tech excellence sure has an increasing Fandroid base. Add to that the new kids in Nokia and Microsoft.

Tech markets have never been this interesting...:)

P.S. Qualcomm just bought a MEMs display startup!

Documentary from Dreamwork China

http://vimeo.com/27982653


rings a bell somewhere...it's been this way since I graduated too...migration within a country is no different from migration outside..yet it's what we, as humans have been taught to do...

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/17/world/asia/china-urban-population-duplicate-2/index.html

Ritchie vs Jobs

I came across this picture of Ritchie vs Jobs treatment by media in the "wake of their deaths" doing rounds on a popular social networking site. Interesting read was the comments which summarized the media culture of today touting Mr. Jobs as Jesus of computing and Mr. Ritchie being ignored.

Media, they say, is a reflection of the society we live in. I, for one, don't believe that for that paints a rather cruel and dreary picture of the society that I live in where all that I hear is so many crimes per minute, so many frauds per second and the likes. What we tend to largely ignore is the number of people who are *not* committing these crimes despite their living state a sure-enough reason to get engaged in some. The control or fear that plays on their minds, which in turn prevents them from doing lawfully unacceptable acts, is holding steady. Anyway, if it mattered what I believe or not then I won't be writing blogs here.

Back to R vs J. Yet again, our society eulogizes the grand and glittery because of its mass appeal. You see numerous posts of "praiseworthy" statements made by the CEOs and leaders which are followed by "likes" and banal comments. And if you look deep enough, these statements are just re-iteration of what we've read/heard in the past in our school-books, in the lessons on moral-values delivered to us during our impressionable days, from the mouths of our elders as pearls of wisdom. However, it needs a constant re-enforcement on our stubborn brains of these ideas and it's an irony that the social media (news, mags, social-networking channels), which does this every now and then, in essence, creates a need for those reminders by veering and thumping the common psyche with all that's bad in the world painted boldly on the front pages and the good finding some meek, corner space whispering itself.

In some aspects, Ritchie vs Jobs portrayal brings us back to how we have been forced to evolve into people lauding the cover vs the core or, put in different words, praising the marketing over the technology. It's the decoration of the box which wins, not the contents. Steve Jobs understood this fact where mass appeal lies while Dennis Ritchie understood that there would be a Steve Jobs to take his creations to the mass.

In the end, iProducts are just a nice tux tailored by one Steve Jobs, covering the body with the beating heart and DNA written by a Dennis Ritchie.

RIP/Have-a-good-after-life Ritchie and Jobs