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To be fair, Samsung's divisions having guns pointed at each other is nothing new. This is the same conglomerate that makes their own chip division fight for pla

by jsheard 11mo ago

To be fair, Samsung's divisions having guns pointed at each other is nothing new. This is the same conglomerate that makes their own chip division fight for placement in their own phones, constantly flip-flopping between using Samsung or Qualcomm chips at the high end, Samsung or Mediatek chips at the low end, or even a combination of first-party and third-party chips in different variants of ostensibly the same device.

morcus 11mo ago
> two versions of the same phone with different processors That's hilarious, which phone is this?
- namibj 11mo ago
  Several high end Galaxy S's AFAIK.
- grincek 11mo ago
  This is the case as recent as of S24, phones can come with exynos or snapdragon, with exynos usually featuring worse performance and battery life
- petcat 11mo ago
  Basically every Galaxy phone comes in two versions. One with Exynos and one with Snapdragon. It's regional though. US always gets the Snapdragon phones while Europe and mostly Asia gets the Exynos version. My understanding is that the Exynos is inferior in a lot of ways, but also cheaper.
  - sgerenser 11mo ago
    In the past using Snapdragon CPUs for the U.S. made sense due to Qualcomm having much better support for the CDMA frequencies needed by Verizon. Probably no longer relevant since the 5G transition though.
- muvlon 11mo ago
  Not one phone, they did this all over the place. Their flagship line did this starting with the Galaxy S7 all the way up to Galaxy S24. Only the most recent Galaxy S25 is Qualcomm Snapdragon only, supposedly because their own Exynos couldn't hit volume production fast enough.
  - noisem4ker 11mo ago
    The S23 too was Snapdragon only, allegedly to let the Exynos team catch some breath and come up with something competitive for the following generation. Which they partly did, as the Exynos S24 is almost on par with its Snapdragon brother. A bit worse on photo and gaming performance, a bit better in web browsing, from the benchmarks I remember.
  - magicalhippo 11mo ago
    The S23 was also Snapdragon-only as far as I know[1]. The S24 had the dual chips again, while as you say S25 is Qualcomm only once more. [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-exynos-versus-snapdragon-3098401/ https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-exynos-versus-snapd...
  - numpad0 11mo ago
    "Galaxy S II" and its aesthetics was already a mere branding shared across at least four different phones with different SoCs, before counting in sub-variants that share same SoCs. This isn't unique to Samsung, nor is it a new phenomenon, just how consumer products are made and sold. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
- intrikate 11mo ago
  I might be out of date, but last I knew, it was "most of them." International models tended to use Samsung's Exynos processors, while the ones for the North American market used Snapdragons or whatever.
lkramer 11mo ago
To be honest, this actually sounds kinda healthy.
- _aavaa_ 11mo ago
  Sears would like to have a word about how healthy intra-company competition is.
  - marcosdumay 11mo ago
    Sears had horizontal market where all of it did basically the same thing. Samsung is a huge conglomerate of several completely different vertical with lots of redundant components. It makes absolutely no sense to apply the lessons from one into the other.
    - reaperducer 11mo ago
      Sears had horizontal market where all of it did basically the same thing. Samsung is a huge conglomerate of several completely different vertical with lots of redundant components. Sears was hardly horizontal. It was also Allstate insurance and Discover credit cards, among other things.
      - marcosdumay 11mo ago
        Ok. And if it did divide on the borders of insurance and payment services, the reorganization wouldn't have been complete bullshit and may even have been somewhat successful.
    - StableAlkyne 11mo ago
      I think what the GP was referring to was the "new" owner of Sears, who reorganized the company into dozens of independent business units in the early 2010s (IT, HR, apparel, electronics, etc). Not departments, either; full-on internal businesses intended as a microcosm of the free market. Each of these units were then given access to an internal "market" and directed to compete with each other for funding. The idea was likely to try and improve efficiency... But what ended up happening is siloing increased, BUs started infighting for a dwindling set of resources (beyond normal politics you'd expect at an organization that size; actively trying to fuck each other over), and cohesion decreased. It's often pointed to as one of the reasons for their decline, and worked out so badly that it's commonly believed their owner (who also owns the company holding their debt and stands to immensely profit if they go bankrupt) desired this outcome... to the point that he got sued a few years ago by investors over the conflict of interest and, let's say "creative" organizational decisions.
EMM_386 11mo ago
Isn't this how South Korean chaebols work? They operate with tension. They're supposed to have unified strategic direction from the top, but individual subsidiaries are also expected to be profit centers that compete in the market.
MagicMoonlight 11mo ago
That’s really good business. Everyone is pushing to be the best rather than accepting mediocrity.
DavidPeiffer 11mo ago
I worked with some supply chain consultants who mentioned "internal suppliers are often worse suppliers than external". Their point was that service levels are often not as stringently tracked, SLA's become internal money shuffling, but the company as a whole paid the price in lower output/profit. The internal partner being the default allows an amount of complacency, and if you shopped around for a comparable level of service to what's being provided, you can often find it for a better price.
Terr_ 11mo ago
I think this is a good time to reference a comic showing software companies' various "Org Charts", especially the one for Microsoft. https://goomics.net/62 https://goomics.net/62

by jsheard 11mo ago

morcus 11mo ago

> two versions of the same phone with different processors That's hilarious, which phone is this?

namibj 11mo ago
Several high end Galaxy S's AFAIK.
grincek 11mo ago
This is the case as recent as of S24, phones can come with exynos or snapdragon, with exynos usually featuring worse performance and battery life
petcat 11mo ago
Basically every Galaxy phone comes in two versions. One with Exynos and one with Snapdragon. It's regional though. US always gets the Snapdragon phones while Europe and mostly Asia gets the Exynos version. My understanding is that the Exynos is inferior in a lot of ways, but also cheaper.
- sgerenser 11mo ago
  In the past using Snapdragon CPUs for the U.S. made sense due to Qualcomm having much better support for the CDMA frequencies needed by Verizon. Probably no longer relevant since the 5G transition though.
muvlon 11mo ago
Not one phone, they did this all over the place. Their flagship line did this starting with the Galaxy S7 all the way up to Galaxy S24. Only the most recent Galaxy S25 is Qualcomm Snapdragon only, supposedly because their own Exynos couldn't hit volume production fast enough.
- noisem4ker 11mo ago
  The S23 too was Snapdragon only, allegedly to let the Exynos team catch some breath and come up with something competitive for the following generation. Which they partly did, as the Exynos S24 is almost on par with its Snapdragon brother. A bit worse on photo and gaming performance, a bit better in web browsing, from the benchmarks I remember.
- magicalhippo 11mo ago
  The S23 was also Snapdragon-only as far as I know[1]. The S24 had the dual chips again, while as you say S25 is Qualcomm only once more. [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-exynos-versus-snapdragon-3098401/ https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-exynos-versus-snapd...
- numpad0 11mo ago
  "Galaxy S II" and its aesthetics was already a mere branding shared across at least four different phones with different SoCs, before counting in sub-variants that share same SoCs. This isn't unique to Samsung, nor is it a new phenomenon, just how consumer products are made and sold. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
intrikate 11mo ago
I might be out of date, but last I knew, it was "most of them." International models tended to use Samsung's Exynos processors, while the ones for the North American market used Snapdragons or whatever.

lkramer 11mo ago

To be honest, this actually sounds kinda healthy.

_aavaa_ 11mo ago
Sears would like to have a word about how healthy intra-company competition is.
- marcosdumay 11mo ago
  Sears had horizontal market where all of it did basically the same thing. Samsung is a huge conglomerate of several completely different vertical with lots of redundant components. It makes absolutely no sense to apply the lessons from one into the other.
  - reaperducer 11mo ago
    Sears had horizontal market where all of it did basically the same thing. Samsung is a huge conglomerate of several completely different vertical with lots of redundant components. Sears was hardly horizontal. It was also Allstate insurance and Discover credit cards, among other things.
    - marcosdumay 11mo ago
      Ok. And if it did divide on the borders of insurance and payment services, the reorganization wouldn't have been complete bullshit and may even have been somewhat successful.
  - StableAlkyne 11mo ago
    I think what the GP was referring to was the "new" owner of Sears, who reorganized the company into dozens of independent business units in the early 2010s (IT, HR, apparel, electronics, etc). Not departments, either; full-on internal businesses intended as a microcosm of the free market. Each of these units were then given access to an internal "market" and directed to compete with each other for funding. The idea was likely to try and improve efficiency... But what ended up happening is siloing increased, BUs started infighting for a dwindling set of resources (beyond normal politics you'd expect at an organization that size; actively trying to fuck each other over), and cohesion decreased. It's often pointed to as one of the reasons for their decline, and worked out so badly that it's commonly believed their owner (who also owns the company holding their debt and stands to immensely profit if they go bankrupt) desired this outcome... to the point that he got sued a few years ago by investors over the conflict of interest and, let's say "creative" organizational decisions.

EMM_386 11mo ago

Isn't this how South Korean chaebols work? They operate with tension. They're supposed to have unified strategic direction from the top, but individual subsidiaries are also expected to be profit centers that compete in the market.

MagicMoonlight 11mo ago

That’s really good business. Everyone is pushing to be the best rather than accepting mediocrity.

DavidPeiffer 11mo ago

I worked with some supply chain consultants who mentioned "internal suppliers are often worse suppliers than external". Their point was that service levels are often not as stringently tracked, SLA's become internal money shuffling, but the company as a whole paid the price in lower output/profit. The internal partner being the default allows an amount of complacency, and if you shopped around for a comparable level of service to what's being provided, you can often find it for a better price.

Terr_ 11mo ago

I think this is a good time to reference a comic showing software companies' various "Org Charts", especially the one for Microsoft. https://goomics.net/62 https://goomics.net/62