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Pretend you are Ford Motor Company. You've had a great, mutually beneficial relationship with Firestone Tires for many years. But Firestone Tires decides to g

by zerohm 14y ago

Pretend you are Ford Motor Company. You've had a great, mutually beneficial relationship with Firestone Tires for many years. But Firestone Tires decides to get into the car making business. Now they design cars in direct competition with yours, they give away designs for free, and occasionally they even have their designs manufactured and sell the cars for profit. Now would you expect Ford to continue to buy tires from Firestone?

eco 14y ago
I don't see why not if Firestone is still making the best tires for the price and the tires you have in development inexplicably blowout occasionally. Switching to your own tires (if you can make them competitive and meet your needs) is a good decision but one that shouldn't be done before they are ready. Samsung is Apple's biggest competitor in the phone space but Apple still buys a large number of the parts used in their phones from them. Apple has been steadily replacing things like processors with their own designs but this certainly isn't because of some petty offense they've taken to Samsung entering their market. It's because it's in their best interest to design their own parts (especially long term). Apple does come off as being emotional about Android with the decisions they've made (especially Maps) but implementing their own Maps and other features of their phones themselves is a good long term business plan. In the case of Maps, they launched too soon but working on their own mapping solution was a good decision.
- brandon 14y ago
  Fun fact: the A6, while designed by Apple, is fabbed by Samsung.
- zerohm 14y ago
  Except that Firestone isn't selling you as good a tire as they are putting on their own Firestone cars. In order to get those tires, they want your customer's usage data and to sell advertisement space on the tires... Both parties are acting in what they believe to be their best interests. I don't fault either. (and btw I completely agree with your second paragraph)

by zerohm 14y ago

eco 14y ago

I don't see why not if Firestone is still making the best tires for the price and the tires you have in development inexplicably blowout occasionally. Switching to your own tires (if you can make them competitive and meet your needs) is a good decision but one that shouldn't be done before they are ready. Samsung is Apple's biggest competitor in the phone space but Apple still buys a large number of the parts used in their phones from them. Apple has been steadily replacing things like processors with their own designs but this certainly isn't because of some petty offense they've taken to Samsung entering their market. It's because it's in their best interest to design their own parts (especially long term). Apple does come off as being emotional about Android with the decisions they've made (especially Maps) but implementing their own Maps and other features of their phones themselves is a good long term business plan. In the case of Maps, they launched too soon but working on their own mapping solution was a good decision.

brandon 14y ago
Fun fact: the A6, while designed by Apple, is fabbed by Samsung.
zerohm 14y ago
Except that Firestone isn't selling you as good a tire as they are putting on their own Firestone cars. In order to get those tires, they want your customer's usage data and to sell advertisement space on the tires... Both parties are acting in what they believe to be their best interests. I don't fault either. (and btw I completely agree with your second paragraph)