Samsung is a large a diverse company, with enough experience to recognize that the margins on parts are much lower than the margins on finished products.
Really? Have you compared Intel's margins to Dell's?
The article pretty much answers any doubts about these if/then premises:
----
Samsung has alreadyplanned out an aggressive legal strategy to block sales of Apple's unannounced iPhone 5 when it arrives in Korea, a new report claims.
Insiders at the South Korean electronics giant indicated to the Korea Times that the companyplans to immediately take its legal battle to the next generation of productswhen Apple attempts to release the iPhone 5 in Korea.
"Justafter the arrival of the iPhone 5 here, Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung?s wireless technology related patents," said an anonymous Samsung senior executive.
"For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights," he added.
I don't think it provides any answers. It's a rumor attributed to an anonymous source. Any, all or none of it could be true.
You miss the point. Samsung is infringing on Apple's IP. Apple puts effort into innovating, then others copy it lock stock and barrel. That simply is not fair.
If you had invented something and others ripped you off, you would be upset as well.
That's a laugh, Apple has been in the mobile business for 5 minutes, they do not belong to any the main mobile standards bodies, don't get involved in standards development and the main way they get patents is to buy them.
Companies like Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft, Panasonic etc., etc., have been beavering away for years on the standards development. Nokia has been working on the GSM standards since the mid eighties.
When apple can come up with a patent on something that really makes a difference to wireless technology then they have a case, at present they are only worried about people making their devices look similar.
Has Samsung been thinking of their own image and customer base in Korea?
If Samsung do somehow (miraculously) win this fight to block iPhone 5, will this indirectly piss off Korean Apple fans who might also buy Samsung products?
I can understand Apples case of an obvious rip off from Samsung of the iPhone and iPad but would it work to Samsungs advantage and branding if they block the iPhone5? Be careful Samsung, your pride is getting in the way of your business sense.
Is Apple thinking of Samsung fans..?
Anyway... I think major thing Samsung wants to achieve here is not to block Apple permanently, but to settle down a deal with Apple where both can sell their gadgets without legal obstructions.
No, and I didn't compare Hasbro to plastic manufacturers either.
You made a flat statement:
"the margins on parts are much lower than the margins on finished products."
That is clearly false.
Then, to support it, you cited PROFIT figures rather than margins. Furthermore, not a single thing you cited actually compared finished device margins to component margins. So you doubled down on your error - and blew it again.
Apple doesn't use any Samsung semi-conductors, except for the RAM and flash chips, which they could get from other sources (Elpida, Micron both make LPDDR2 and flash memory, for example). Samsung fabs the Apple SoC's, but it's almost a public secret that from the A6 onwards, TSMC will produce them (no reason why they couldn't do it, they basically have the exact same equipment as Samsung, I know this because I work for the supplier of said equipment). The radio IC's are from Infineon and Qualcomm. The screens Apple already gets from LG, Wintek and I think a third supplier. The battery is custom, don't know where they are produced but definitely not Samsung. The cameras are from OmniVision, for the iPhone 5 some people are speculating it will have a Sony cam. The gyroscope/accelerometer are from STMicro. The case is not made by Samsung, and the iPhones are assembled by Foxconn and Pegatron.
What that infographic isn't telling it's ignorant audience is that Samsung is one of the suppliers of all those parts but the SoC for the current A based processors.
The big loss will come when Samsung gets dumped for the SoC.
ARM has become certified with Global Foundries and I wouldn't put it past Apple to use the new state of the art plant going online in upstate New York to be one of those upcoming SoC manufacturers for it's embedded systems.
Global Foundries, Milpitas, California, and Samsung Electronics, Japan, announce plans to synchronize global semiconductor fabrication facilities to produce chips based on a new high-performance and low-leakage 28nm High-K Metal Gate technology. The technology has been specifically developed for mobile device applications, offering 60% of active power reduction at the same frequency or 55% performance boost at the same leakage over 45nm low power SoC designs.
In 2010, Global Foundries and Samsung announced a fab synchronization on low-power 28nm HKMG technology in collaboration with IBM and STMicroelectronics. This low-power technology is qualified and fully design enabled with standard cell libraries, memory compilers, and additional complex IP blocks. The high-performance offering complements the low-power technology, extending the frequency of operation for high-performance smartphones, tablets, and notebook computers, while retaining ultra-low leakage transistors and memories to enable the long battery life needed for mobile environments.
The companies are proving the collaborative value of a synchronized platform by working with several customers to optimize processes and tooling for both the low-power and high-performance 28nm HKMG technologies. The synchronization process helps ensure consistent production worldwide, enabling customer chip designs to be produced at multiple sources with no redesign required, leveraging the customers' design investments.
By virtue of the synchronization, the collaboration presents a "virtual fab" that derives manufacturing capacity from four geographically diverse fabs. Each company has two 300mm fabs that will qualify the technology: Global Foundries Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany and Fab 8 in Saratoga County, New York; and Samsung S1 in Giheung, Korea and the company's recently expanded Fab S2 in Austin, Texas.
The four fabs represent a global footprint estimated to be the largest in the foundry industry for leading-edge capacity, offering customer choice enabled by close collaboration and an unparalleled de-risking of supply chain uncertainties.
What a great way to stiff one and open the other with welcome arms.
Samsung needs to do something, ANYTHING, to keep from getting crushed. Even if it's wildly irrational. It just might fool some of their shareholders and keep their top management in place.
It'll be funny to see them get smacked down again. If Samsung really wants to sue Apple over basic wireless technology, they'll need to sue every other handset manufacturer that uses that technology. Basic technology patents are encumbered by "fair use" clauses. They're designed to prevent patent-holders from choosing who gets to use their patents and who doesn't.
Who knows? Maybe they'll start citing Star Trek and Star Wars as prior art. They've already tried using other sci-fi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey
Maybe they want to push legal system into declaring rectangular square a basic IT technology..?
Sorry to disappoint, but unlike many here I don't pretend to be the judge deciding over this case, and will instead wait to see what comes out of the court.
The thing is, you strongly implied that you did know better when you said that I was wrong about using an NDA like this, and when you indicated that you had extensive experience with them. Then, when I believed you and asked if you had ever seen this happen, you went all evasive with the "who knows what the judge will say" line. Not cool.
Actually, you expressed a surprising certainty that somehow counsel was not allowed to have access to any operational info. I questioned that. It's your assertion, not mine: do you actually believe counsel is forbidden to have access to operational info, and if so what are you basing it on?
Now you are simply misquoting me, so this exchange has probably become pointless. But I'll give it one more go in case we are really just miscommunicating.
I never said anything about counsel not being allowed access to information - that was clear and you appear to be deflecting. I did say that the NDAs that I have experience of, which may not be typical, would be breached by trying to use them to start a legal case. I further made the simple observation that having counsel check out an NDA prior to signing is different from giving counsel the confidential information that it covers for the purpose of starting an action. But, I conceded that you may know better in the commercial realm, and I asked whether that had, in fact, happened in your experience. That is potentially really pertinent to this situation. For whatever reason, you continue to decline to answer that question.
In the Ford/GM example, neither of these two companies introduced, invented or popularized the mid-size family saloon, or added anything substantial to mid-size family saloons that didn't already exist. They were both already in the business of making cars, there has always been a demand for mid-size saloons, so they both came up with a car that fit that segment, and apparently one of them ripped off the others design.
Ford did invent method of cars mass production. I don't think they could have patented that, otherwise for couple of decades everyone else would have to settle down for hand-made low volume super-cars.
Quote:
With the iPad and iPhone, Apple launched products that were a complete departure from everything that came before it, taking a few very bold decisions that many, many people have laughed at and ridiculed, but eventually turned out to be the big selling points of iOS devices. Apple took all these design and product decisions on their own accord, they developed their own software, and basically innovated almost everything about iOS devices themselves (note: 'innovate' is not the same as 'invent'). Seeing the succes of iOS devices, Samsung simply decided to imitate everything about them, going after the exact same customers using the exact same hardware running software that looks almost exactly the same (touchwiz, kies), advertising it as direct competitor to iOS products (except 'better'), and so on.
I don't really agree with you here. I still think that, from GUI point of view, my iPhone is not that much different from my old Palm Tungsten; matrix of icons on colour touch screen. And there was Palm Desktop software for syncing addresses, calendar, ToDo... and transferring media between PC and PDA.
Apple refined all that nicely with iOS and (to lesser degree, arguably) iTunes, but I personnally don't see that as new invention.
Quote:
I think this whole Apple vs Samsung war is about all of this, not just about how much the iPad looks like a Galaxy Tab. If that were true, Apple would be suing the manufacturers of about every tablet on the market, because they all look the same. They sued Samsung, because Samsung is trying to get a free ride on Apples success using products that you could almost call KIRFs with a big-brand name on them.
That is fine, except that German court didn't remark on packing and advertising and... but on basic minimalistic design of a product. The thing for me here is, tablets are designed around software they run on, and if software is designed for touch screen display, it is really nonsense to put buttons on device just to differentiate it, even if Android hasn't got need for such buttons. In case of tablets, buttons are of soft type (rather than physical) and Android 3.x does have different screen layout from iOS, thus it does differ when it comes to buttons as well.
I can see reason for Apple's complains re Samsung phones and their GUI overlay that does look like iOS, but tablet related Android is a different beast than iOS, for better or worse, and I cannot support Apple's claims on that behalf. Anyone holding (switched on) iPad and Android tablet for at least 30 seconds could never really confuse them.
You're correct: this began with my post #103, replying to AnOldAplGuy. He left the thread shortly after you picked it up. My last comment should have been directed at him.
Whether the launching of this case constitutes a breach of NDA is something the judge will have to decide, as a breach may likely have been avoided if the filings did not disclose specifics of unreleased products. I haven't seen either the NDA or the court filings in question so I'm not in a position to say, but since the case includes released products and has not been summarily dismissed by virtue of its being a breach, I'm inclined to let the court do its work and see how it lands.
So to be as clear as I can here to avoid further misunderstanding, I have no opinion about whether the filing of the case necessarily constitutes a breach. In contrast, AnOldAplGuy wrote with great certainty that it was, and my aim here is only to suggest that such certainty is misplaced given the very sparse reporting in the article we're discussing.
OK thanks for clarifying. I'm still curious to know if you (or anyone else) knows of an example of where an NDA was used to build a case against the other party. I'm not looking for an opinion on the merits of this particular case - I agree that we don't know enough to make that useful.
Comments
Samsung is a large a diverse company, with enough experience to recognize that the margins on parts are much lower than the margins on finished products.
Really? Have you compared Intel's margins to Dell's?
The article pretty much answers any doubts about these if/then premises:
----
Samsung has alreadyplanned out an aggressive legal strategy to block sales of Apple's unannounced iPhone 5 when it arrives in Korea, a new report claims.
Insiders at the South Korean electronics giant indicated to the Korea Times that the company plans to immediately take its legal battle to the next generation of productswhen Apple attempts to release the iPhone 5 in Korea.
"Justafter the arrival of the iPhone 5 here, Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung?s wireless technology related patents," said an anonymous Samsung senior executive.
"For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights," he added.
I don't think it provides any answers. It's a rumor attributed to an anonymous source. Any, all or none of it could be true.
You miss the point. Samsung is infringing on Apple's IP. Apple puts effort into innovating, then others copy it lock stock and barrel. That simply is not fair.
If you had invented something and others ripped you off, you would be upset as well.
That's a laugh, Apple has been in the mobile business for 5 minutes, they do not belong to any the main mobile standards bodies, don't get involved in standards development and the main way they get patents is to buy them.
Companies like Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft, Panasonic etc., etc., have been beavering away for years on the standards development. Nokia has been working on the GSM standards since the mid eighties.
When apple can come up with a patent on something that really makes a difference to wireless technology then they have a case, at present they are only worried about people making their devices look similar.
Has Samsung been thinking of their own image and customer base in Korea?
If Samsung do somehow (miraculously) win this fight to block iPhone 5, will this indirectly piss off Korean Apple fans who might also buy Samsung products?
I can understand Apples case of an obvious rip off from Samsung of the iPhone and iPad but would it work to Samsungs advantage and branding if they block the iPhone5? Be careful Samsung, your pride is getting in the way of your business sense.
Is Apple thinking of Samsung fans..?
Anyway... I think major thing Samsung wants to achieve here is not to block Apple permanently, but to settle down a deal with Apple where both can sell their gadgets without legal obstructions.
No, and I didn't compare Hasbro to plastic manufacturers either.
You made a flat statement:
"the margins on parts are much lower than the margins on finished products."
That is clearly false.
Then, to support it, you cited PROFIT figures rather than margins. Furthermore, not a single thing you cited actually compared finished device margins to component margins. So you doubled down on your error - and blew it again.
맞고 한 하자는거서 어야지 왜?
유럽에? 국에서 개드.국에서 이야- 뭐,소송걸!! 고 한 하자,부는,서 까부? 야 이거? 유럽가, 한국에는,거야? 는,서 까부?
왜 서 빰,지 왜지 왜;개드!! 립, 걸!! 고 한 !! ? 야 이거? ;p
Very mature....
Btw, these grammars are absolutely terrible. Both of you need to go back to school and learn some Korean...
Apple doesn't use any Samsung semi-conductors, except for the RAM and flash chips, which they could get from other sources (Elpida, Micron both make LPDDR2 and flash memory, for example). Samsung fabs the Apple SoC's, but it's almost a public secret that from the A6 onwards, TSMC will produce them (no reason why they couldn't do it, they basically have the exact same equipment as Samsung, I know this because I work for the supplier of said equipment). The radio IC's are from Infineon and Qualcomm. The screens Apple already gets from LG, Wintek and I think a third supplier. The battery is custom, don't know where they are produced but definitely not Samsung. The cameras are from OmniVision, for the iPhone 5 some people are speculating it will have a Sony cam. The gyroscope/accelerometer are from STMicro. The case is not made by Samsung, and the iPhones are assembled by Foxconn and Pegatron.
Did I miss any parts?
Fantastic post.
No, and I didn't compare Hasbro to plastic manufacturers either.
Instead, I wrote only about Samsung's diverse operations, where we find:
http://hotcellularphone.com/samsung/...hones-tablets/
http://articles.economictimes.indiat...ng-smartphones
http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...profits/015046
Not surprising, given that AI reports Apple unilaterally demanding discounts from already-strapped vendors.
After all, Samsung makes more than a fourth of the iPhone 4's components.
Being parts boy just isn't what it used to be.
What that infographic isn't telling it's ignorant audience is that Samsung is one of the suppliers of all those parts but the SoC for the current A based processors.
The big loss will come when Samsung gets dumped for the SoC.
ARM has become certified with Global Foundries and I wouldn't put it past Apple to use the new state of the art plant going online in upstate New York to be one of those upcoming SoC manufacturers for it's embedded systems.
What would be ironic is this bit of news from Global Foundries: http://www.asminternational.org/port...00621e010aRCRD
Global Foundries, Milpitas, California, and Samsung Electronics, Japan, announce plans to synchronize global semiconductor fabrication facilities to produce chips based on a new high-performance and low-leakage 28nm High-K Metal Gate technology. The technology has been specifically developed for mobile device applications, offering 60% of active power reduction at the same frequency or 55% performance boost at the same leakage over 45nm low power SoC designs.
In 2010, Global Foundries and Samsung announced a fab synchronization on low-power 28nm HKMG technology in collaboration with IBM and STMicroelectronics. This low-power technology is qualified and fully design enabled with standard cell libraries, memory compilers, and additional complex IP blocks. The high-performance offering complements the low-power technology, extending the frequency of operation for high-performance smartphones, tablets, and notebook computers, while retaining ultra-low leakage transistors and memories to enable the long battery life needed for mobile environments.
The companies are proving the collaborative value of a synchronized platform by working with several customers to optimize processes and tooling for both the low-power and high-performance 28nm HKMG technologies. The synchronization process helps ensure consistent production worldwide, enabling customer chip designs to be produced at multiple sources with no redesign required, leveraging the customers' design investments.
By virtue of the synchronization, the collaboration presents a "virtual fab" that derives manufacturing capacity from four geographically diverse fabs. Each company has two 300mm fabs that will qualify the technology: Global Foundries Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany and Fab 8 in Saratoga County, New York; and Samsung S1 in Giheung, Korea and the company's recently expanded Fab S2 in Austin, Texas.
The four fabs represent a global footprint estimated to be the largest in the foundry industry for leading-edge capacity, offering customer choice enabled by close collaboration and an unparalleled de-risking of supply chain uncertainties.
What a great way to stiff one and open the other with welcome arms.
Samsung needs to do something, ANYTHING, to keep from getting crushed. Even if it's wildly irrational. It just might fool some of their shareholders and keep their top management in place.
It'll be funny to see them get smacked down again. If Samsung really wants to sue Apple over basic wireless technology, they'll need to sue every other handset manufacturer that uses that technology. Basic technology patents are encumbered by "fair use" clauses. They're designed to prevent patent-holders from choosing who gets to use their patents and who doesn't.
Who knows? Maybe they'll start citing Star Trek and Star Wars as prior art. They've already tried using other sci-fi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey
Maybe they want to push legal system into declaring rectangular square a basic IT technology..?
Sorry to disappoint, but unlike many here I don't pretend to be the judge deciding over this case, and will instead wait to see what comes out of the court.
The thing is, you strongly implied that you did know better when you said that I was wrong about using an NDA like this, and when you indicated that you had extensive experience with them. Then, when I believed you and asked if you had ever seen this happen, you went all evasive with the "who knows what the judge will say" line. Not cool.
http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsu...nouncement.pdf
Actually, you expressed a surprising certainty that somehow counsel was not allowed to have access to any operational info. I questioned that. It's your assertion, not mine: do you actually believe counsel is forbidden to have access to operational info, and if so what are you basing it on?
Now you are simply misquoting me, so this exchange has probably become pointless. But I'll give it one more go in case we are really just miscommunicating.
I never said anything about counsel not being allowed access to information - that was clear and you appear to be deflecting. I did say that the NDAs that I have experience of, which may not be typical, would be breached by trying to use them to start a legal case. I further made the simple observation that having counsel check out an NDA prior to signing is different from giving counsel the confidential information that it covers for the purpose of starting an action. But, I conceded that you may know better in the commercial realm, and I asked whether that had, in fact, happened in your experience. That is potentially really pertinent to this situation. For whatever reason, you continue to decline to answer that question.
In the Ford/GM example, neither of these two companies introduced, invented or popularized the mid-size family saloon, or added anything substantial to mid-size family saloons that didn't already exist. They were both already in the business of making cars, there has always been a demand for mid-size saloons, so they both came up with a car that fit that segment, and apparently one of them ripped off the others design.
Ford did invent method of cars mass production. I don't think they could have patented that, otherwise for couple of decades everyone else would have to settle down for hand-made low volume super-cars.
With the iPad and iPhone, Apple launched products that were a complete departure from everything that came before it, taking a few very bold decisions that many, many people have laughed at and ridiculed, but eventually turned out to be the big selling points of iOS devices. Apple took all these design and product decisions on their own accord, they developed their own software, and basically innovated almost everything about iOS devices themselves (note: 'innovate' is not the same as 'invent'). Seeing the succes of iOS devices, Samsung simply decided to imitate everything about them, going after the exact same customers using the exact same hardware running software that looks almost exactly the same (touchwiz, kies), advertising it as direct competitor to iOS products (except 'better'), and so on.
I don't really agree with you here. I still think that, from GUI point of view, my iPhone is not that much different from my old Palm Tungsten; matrix of icons on colour touch screen. And there was Palm Desktop software for syncing addresses, calendar, ToDo... and transferring media between PC and PDA.
Apple refined all that nicely with iOS and (to lesser degree, arguably) iTunes, but I personnally don't see that as new invention.
I think this whole Apple vs Samsung war is about all of this, not just about how much the iPad looks like a Galaxy Tab. If that were true, Apple would be suing the manufacturers of about every tablet on the market, because they all look the same. They sued Samsung, because Samsung is trying to get a free ride on Apples success using products that you could almost call KIRFs with a big-brand name on them.
That is fine, except that German court didn't remark on packing and advertising and... but on basic minimalistic design of a product. The thing for me here is, tablets are designed around software they run on, and if software is designed for touch screen display, it is really nonsense to put buttons on device just to differentiate it, even if Android hasn't got need for such buttons. In case of tablets, buttons are of soft type (rather than physical) and Android 3.x does have different screen layout from iOS, thus it does differ when it comes to buttons as well.
I can see reason for Apple's complains re Samsung phones and their GUI overlay that does look like iOS, but tablet related Android is a different beast than iOS, for better or worse, and I cannot support Apple's claims on that behalf. Anyone holding (switched on) iPad and Android tablet for at least 30 seconds could never really confuse them.
You're correct: this began with my post #103, replying to AnOldAplGuy. He left the thread shortly after you picked it up. My last comment should have been directed at him.
Whether the launching of this case constitutes a breach of NDA is something the judge will have to decide, as a breach may likely have been avoided if the filings did not disclose specifics of unreleased products. I haven't seen either the NDA or the court filings in question so I'm not in a position to say, but since the case includes released products and has not been summarily dismissed by virtue of its being a breach, I'm inclined to let the court do its work and see how it lands.
So to be as clear as I can here to avoid further misunderstanding, I have no opinion about whether the filing of the case necessarily constitutes a breach. In contrast, AnOldAplGuy wrote with great certainty that it was, and my aim here is only to suggest that such certainty is misplaced given the very sparse reporting in the article we're discussing.
OK thanks for clarifying. I'm still curious to know if you (or anyone else) knows of an example of where an NDA was used to build a case against the other party. I'm not looking for an opinion on the merits of this particular case - I agree that we don't know enough to make that useful.