I don't think Samsung cares about software. They are primarily a manufacturing concern, and their lineup of branded phones and devices is just a way to eke out

I don't think Samsung cares about software. They are primarily a manufacturing concern, and their lineup of branded phones and devices is just a way to eke out more value from that existing capacity. Could be that manufacturing capacity is slack, or they need a technology demonstration for design firms that otherwise aren't moving quickly enough ("Hey, we have all this stuff, let's make something cool out of it!"). That'd explain why they were one of the first Android tablets out there, especially with Android not really being tablet-ready. That kind of risk could break a firm that had to outsource manufacturing. But Samsung already had all the hardware pieces; they just had to drop in the software.