

Samsung quietly continues to conquer the world - Bry789123
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/10/samsung-quietly-continues-to-conquer-the-world/

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_delirium
Samsung 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.

~~~
jakarta
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.

~~~
chalst
Family ownership can give a strong, long-term focus, compared to the usual
public company.

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jontsai
Don'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.

~~~
SwellJoe
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.

~~~
jontsai
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.

~~~
Hyena
"and when those companies make boatloads of cash in their own country, guess
where they will start pushing out to?"

Nowhere. They're localized copies of services existing elsewhere. Their
strength tends to be either localization or central government block on
American competitors.

~~~
jontsai
Sorry, in my previous comment I was talking about both the on-the-ground
engineers and also the people running the companies at the top (e.g. Jack Ma).
They will also have a lot of money to buy whoever and whatever they want.

~~~
Hyena
Can you name an international software acquisition which has gone well?

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6ren
That 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)

~~~
sorbus
> btw: the kindle, with passive E-ink, has 2 months battery (i.e. over x100
> longer)

And my TI-84 has had the same batteries for at least two years (it's getting
to the point that I'm starting to wonder when they're going to run out, since
I know that it will be the worst possible time). It doesn't matter, it's an
irrelevant comparison, unless you're saying that something more similar to the
kindle would be better for developing regions where solar power is a major
selling point (which is a really good thing to point out - why does a solar
powered netbook need a 250GB HDD? Why not a small SSD, if that would save
power?).

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cjboco
I'm not 100% sure, but I recall a story about a division of Samsung that made
watches, being banned from selling them in Germany or somewhere like that.
They copied/cloned something that Rolex did (Maybe the quartz crystal or
something like that). Does anyone know the actual details about this story?

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bakbak
the most important thing mentioned in the article is "targeting the five
billion people who live outside the current 'traditional' smartphone market."
- whoever understands this will be the world leader in the future ... even the
companies like Nokia and Yahoo that looks like failures today can comeback
because they understand these 5 billion people better than many others , but
somehow the noise of 'traditional' marketers has disillusioned their original
strategy... someone has to just pick-up those threads and bring back these
companies on track.

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rhygar
The 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...](http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/18/family-ties-earn-this-smart-cover-knock-
off-a-samsung-certification-and-a-place-on-their-store-shelves/)

~~~
Kylekramer
A: Not a Samsung product. B: Nothing is new under the sun:
[http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/03/apple-ipad-2-smart-
cover-...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/03/apple-ipad-2-smart-cover-vs-
incase-convertible-magazine-jacket/)

~~~
rhygar
A. "Not a Samsung product": in a technical sense yes but in a practical sense
no. It was made by the CEO's cousin and had Samsung's stamp of approval.
Samsung only yanked approval after it was pointed out how blatant of a copy it
was.

B. The Samsung clone and the Apple original both have "Smart" in the name,
both have ridged covers, and both come in pastel colors. The advertising is
even the same - each color case is fanned out in the picture. The evidence is
blatantly clear here that Samsung is trying to copy Apple's design.

