“The widely anticipated two-day meeting between chief executives of Samsung and Apple yielded no agreement between the parties mired in a hot legal dispute over copyright infringements.” Why end fruitless litigation and spend that money on improving products or, I don’t know, charity, when you could throw money at lawyers instead, to the benefit of absolutely no one? These lawsuits are Jobs’ blemish on the company, but Apple can’t back out now for fear of losing face, even though Cook has indicated he really wants to. Petty.
Part of me thinks Samsung should just cut its losses and focus on China. Shut Apple out of that market completely.
Why not all of Asia ?
I find that the focus on US is pointless considering the patents issues. It’s true that the US buzz makes a product success all over the world.
But most of the features working in the US, are either not properly implemented for other countries, or not implemented at all.
China first, then Asia. If Samsung can shut Apple out of China, the rest of Asia would be easier to dominate. If they divert themselves too early, they basically invite Apple in.
China still has some growth left. India doesn’t look like it’s going to do much. They don’t need to worry too much about Japan. They’re the only other two Asian economies that can bring quicker rewards but China’s just much more important at this stage.
Edited 2012-05-24 10:54 UTC
It is too late for China, already hooked on iMagination.
Apple’s only interest is getting rid of all the competition. When Tim Cook says “we just want people to invent their own stuff.”, he actually is saying “we don’t want any competition”.
“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong, I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.â€
This doesn’t seem like a company that will negotiate.
Apple made some type of products successful. Now they think they actually invented them and are entitled to a complete monopoly.
If I felt that someone had stolen or copied something I had come up with and patented, I might have the desire to go thermonuclear on who I thought had stolen the goods from me. Or I might want to just sue them and get money out of them for everything they make and sell using that stolen intellectual property. Jobs went for the first option, evidently, which is no less proper than the second option, it’s just the one he chose, within the current system, which is what he had to work with.
Everyone can argue that software and hardware patents are stupid, dumb, unenforceable, illegal, whatever, but the fact remains that the system remains in place around the world, and until that changes, companies will use this existing system to the betterment of their companies as they see it.
Edited 2012-05-24 10:55 UTC
“I know this is stupid, but as everybody else is doing this stupid thing, let’s do the same thing.”
-Lemming X.
Ah stealing, you mean just like how Apple has created much of it’s product line? Of course, when Apple steal it’s because they’re great artists, when others steal it’s because they’re crooks.
A lot of the Steve Jobs hatred of Android stemmed from the 80’s and the percieved rip off of Microsoft Windows from the Apple Mac, i don’t think SJ ever got over this.
Personally along with everyone else i think it’s stupid to try and patent ideas such as these, if it wasn’t for Volvo we wouldn’t have the seat belt in every car and if it wasn’t for Mercedes Benz we wouldn’t have anti-lock brakes. The key is not to invent something and then rest on your laurels, as indeed steve jobs said you have to skate to where the puck will be not to where it is.
Say “no” to car analogies. Please. It is truly the Godwin point of hitech discussions (not fore trolling aspect – there is none – but for the inevitability that this comparison will creep up sooner or later).
Lets kill this car analogy, once and for all, we have seat belts in every car because states regulation say that every cars should have seat belts, Volvo was merely a step on the way to such regulation, path that was started in the 19th Century, and before the invention of the three-points seat belt, many other inventors and companies have worked on the concept. Mercedes did not invent ABS, it was first invented in 1920s by Gabriel Voisin for airplanes, and after many companies including Mercedes, Chrysler, BMW, GM, Nissan… have worked on improving the concept.
So what does the car analogy told us ? That those great invention (seat-belt and ABS) were actually the results of many people and companies building on the invention brought by others. And the interesting thing is that Volvo did not block competitors to use the three-point seat belt. And that is the problem most people have with Apple, they are trying to block competition, while they have build their technologies upon the work on others, they don’t want other to build and improve technologies upon their work.
Thats exactly what i meant that a lot of invention is done on the top of other people / teams / company works (standing on the shoulders of giants).
I used a car analogy as i hoped it would be the quickest way to convey the point that the patient system on technology is strangling invention and that the only way to stay on top is to keep innovating past your competitors not to keep them down with laws/patents.
I don’t know about the rest of the people here but a car analogy is equal to a laundry detergent analogy to me.
It is never fruitless negotiation when Apple is involved.
Why must it be assumed Apple is the one refusing to back down given that two companies failed at negotiating. Why would Cook lose face at all? Why can’t it be Samsung being unreasonable.
Because Samsung has a history of properly signing deals like this and cross-licensing. Apple does not. On top of that, Apple is the one who attacked, so they have the most to lose.