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But shouldn't companies like Motorola, Samsung, Palm, et al have those resources at their disposal? They are consumer electronics companies, after all.
by rje 16y ago
But shouldn't companies like Motorola, Samsung, Palm, et al have those resources at their disposal? They are consumer electronics companies, after all.
- mburns 16y agoSony is almost exactly 1/10th the size of Apple (in terms of Market Cap). Don't underestimate just how much weight Apple is throwing around these days. Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does.
- masklinn 16y ago> Sony is almost exactly 1/10th the size of Apple (in terms of Market Cap). Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount. > Sonly also doesn't fab their own processors for mobile devices like Apple now does. Apple does not fab their own processors (for mobile devices or otherwise), and — up to the A4 anyway — don't have that much input into them (the A4 is almost of-the-shelf, we'll have to see for the A5 but so far there's been no great works there)
- cosmicray 16y ago> Sony is also 130% the size of Apple in terms of revenue, 180% the size of Apple in terms of assets and 340% the size of Apple in terms of employees headcount. Which suggests that Sony makes ~39% of the revenue per employee that Apple does.
- masklinn 16y agoSure, Apple is one of the most efficient companies in the world at making money. Apple also has $14bn net income while Sony has $-500m.
- muhfuhkuh 16y agoThey are big, no doubt. But they aren't as innovative as they once were. Palm is HP now, and HP is squarely in the commodity hardware business. You can't outstyle a boutique marketing haute couture when you sell K-mart seconds. I mean, even Nokia had to capitulate to stay competitive in the smartphone market, ceding control to a not-even-second-place Phone 7 software stack with an app store ecosystem that literally has to bribe hot developers to port over their stuff let alone have a fiercely competitive market like App Store or Android Marketplace.
- joebananas 16y agoWell, I wonder how much Samsung actually cares. There are no high-tech devices that already isn't chock-a-block full of their components, and they're crazy profitable.
- zmmmmm 16y agoI think Samsung's approach is incredibly smart: they are being first an arms dealer, only secondly fighting a war. There's no way they can lose.
- msbarnett 16y agoPalm let their original OS stagnate while pumping out iterations of their phone hardware. Moto mostly stuck with iterating hardware models. Samsung seems to have split their software and hardware people into competing groups. There's a general lack of focus or apparent belief that their core competencies should only include one (1) of hardware or software among most consumer electronics brands, it seems. And a lot of timidity regarding innovating something new that cannibalizes your sales of some older thing.
- protomyth 16y agoHow many companies have the whole chain and cash assets to pre-pay > 1 billion USD in components?
- rahoulb 16y agoThe real shift that started with the iPhone was that the software became as important as the hardware - how they work together [1]. Motorola, Samsung, Nokia et al don't have the extensive software culture. Palm/HP is the only one that does. [1] Also a weakness with Android phone manufacturers - my phone has a small screen, making the icons just too small to hit accurately - Apple would never let a device like that leave the building, Samsung are quite happy to and Google are OK with having their name slapped on the back of it. EDIT: forgot about formatting