
Lenovo: Apple is losing out in China - mjfern
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/604d1d54-87b9-11df-9f37-00144feabdc0.html
======
rdtsc
Well, first of all the article is just a PR release from Lenovo claiming
Lenovo is ahead of their competitors. Not very surprising.

Not to say that they are wrong. But I think the main reason is piracy. Windows
has been so popular in China and Eastern Europe primarily because pirated
copies of the OS could run on a variety of hardware. Apple OS is designed to
run on a rather limited set of hardware. This is also coupled with generally a
easier way to download pirated version s of Windows software vs. Mac OS X
versions of the same software.

The large availability of Windows then creates an environment for a home grown
software market that runs on Windows only, which in turn make Windows even
more desirable.

A third factor is perhaps the design. Apple products cost a lot more, it
seems, because Apple feels their applications have a much better designed UI.
It is true, and I am not arguing with that. But that UI is designed to appeal
to American and Western tastes and preferences. Or, rather, Americans and West
Europeans would pay a lot more for a well designed UI vs an an with equivalent
functionally but without a polished UI. In other words, they are happy running
Office in Windows and using Windows' file manager vs paying more to run the
same version of Office and using Mac OS X file manager on Apple hardware and
software.

~~~
bad_user
The article hasn't mentioned OS X or Macbooks anywhere. The article is talking
about the limited success of the iPhone.

> _that UI is designed to appeal to American and Western tastes and
> preferences_

You know, even in the American and Western countries it took Windows 7 just
one month to surpass OS X's marketshare, reaching 10% in only 4 months.

After the failure that was Vista, you could say that customers are fed up ...
but apparently a lot of people prefer Windows. Over 90% of them, Chinese or
not.

~~~
Groxx
obligatory Win7 joke: <http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/30/seventh-
house/> (my sentiments exactly)

I wonder if the beta launches helped things... my _dad_ tried the beta.
Probably the first beta he's ever touched. But I'm not aware of the scope of
7's beta push as compared to Vista / XP / whatever, just that it was pretty
shockingly successful from what I've seen.

And I think a lot of customers prefer (their) Windows (-only software), and
what's familiar over something more radically new (however minor). Don't
discount people's laziness in choosing what to buy. Similarly, Apple is pretty
wrapped up in being _fashionable_ now, and I wonder how well they'll do if any
_real_ design-competitors arise.

------
shrikant
So, premium gadgets are worse off in a country where the entire national
income is about 2.5 times less than the disposable income of the USA?

Shocking.

~~~
wisty
Na. Chinese pay good money for high quality stuff. They'll pay a high
proportion of their income into a few well-targeted purchases. If they don't
want a good item, then they pay next to nothing for a low-quality knock-off.
But high-quality stuff sells well.

Mac is losing because QQ (IM client) works better on Windows, and Xunlei
(torrent client) is Windows-only.

~~~
wooster

      Mac is losing because QQ (IM client) works better 
      on Windows, and Xunlei (torrent client) is Windows-only.
    

Those are two pieces of software which would be trivially easy to port to OS
X. I doubt they're the primary reason the Mac isn't doing well in China.

~~~
est
> Those are two pieces of software which would be trivially easy to port to OS
> X

Not really. QQ login requires QQDoctor which is a ring3 level driver. Thunder
has it's own network stack to speed things up.

~~~
markbao
Sorry, what?

<http://cl.ly/6d3c5bbf3dc88653693e>

~~~
est
it lacks several core features, like audio & video chat, group file sharing,
etc. Millions of years passed now it's still Beta.

------
vorg
>Speaking of Apple’s chief executive, Lenovo’s founder and chairman, told the
Financial Times: We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and
doesn’t care about China. If Apple were to spend the same effort on the
Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.

Perhaps Steve Jobs worked out long ago only Chinese companies, e.g. Lenovo,
succeed in China, so why try too hard.

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petdog
Yeah. In other news, thinkpads are the best laptops ever.

(not sarcasm. There's a need for some lenovo fanboys, too.)

------
adolph
Most of the article reads like Lenovo CEO's scorned-love-poem from China: ". .
. a manager needs to be the string on which he puts one pearl after another.
But Jobs himself is a big pearl. . . has such a bad temper and doesn’t care
about China. . ."

I suppose that Lenovo's CEO really wanted to talk about their new phone. But
whatever tiny sliver of competition acknowledgement he let slip in turned his
news coverage into a weird "CEO gives the competition advice" article.

------
Groxx
I wonder how well the iPed is doing.

~~~
c1sc0
Lots of iPhone clones & Gucci bags on the subway last time I was in Shanghai:
when the device is mostly a fashion accessory UI & hardware quality does not
matter all that much. Not sure if the iPad is a fashion accessory in China yet
though.

------
barmstrong
Not really - Apple still has the better product.

China is losing out on Apple.

