Steve Jobs Resigns....

[Charles Morgan]

Having banked numerous Chaebol, Samsung takes opacity to levels rarely seen. However it has a long and glorious track record of losing litigation on computer matters. I doubt a company with criminal convictions for substantial price fixing and cartel operation is starting in a good place on this one.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Apple have a massive amount of brand goodwill and inertia. They also are good at design and packaging.

But they actually have very little compared with the likes of Sony or IBM or Samsung who research, design, and manufacture key technologies and processes.

The reason Apple are litigating is simply because they have to. They can't compete so easily if the fight gets down to the technology.

I always find this anti-Apple stance rather strange, in the same way I find the Apple groupies strange.

I'm no expert in the computer world so I don't have these prejudices and I buy what I think is the best. If it's not up to much, I don't buy it again. Yet the Apple products that I've bought or used have been better than the competitors that I've also used or bought. This is not just brilliant advertising, that only gets you so far (ask Alan Sugar), in my experience they are really good at what they do and they deserve all their plaudits.

 

[flango]

I doubt a company with criminal convictions for substantial price fixing and cartel operation is starting in a good place on this one.

To be fair name a successful company that has not been involved in price fixing and cartels or anti competitive practices? Apple itself is currently under investigation by the competition commission and FTC for anti competitive practices and abuse of a dominant market position so they are hardly coming from a good position either,

 

[markjay]

Samsung defense: Stanley Kubrick beat Apple to iPad design - ZDNet

 

[flango]

Samsung defense: Stanley Kubrick beat Apple to iPad design - ZDNet

That's a very interesting claim of prior art, As is Apples claim Samsung infringes the aesthetic design of the iphone and ipad. Normally the argument is over the technology IP not the design, bizzare

 

[Charles Morgan]

I could name name numerous of successful companies that have not been convicted of criminal cartel activities, Apple included. Not having ESP I can't say which ones have been involved in criminal activities without being found out - it is one of those beating your wife type questions.

Care to point me to the Competition Commission investigation, Google seems not to be featuring it highly, which is odd given their antipathy.

 

[flango]

I could name name numerous of successful companies that have not been convicted of criminal cartel activities, Apple included. Not having ESP I can't say which ones have been involved in criminal activities without being found out - it is one of those beating your wife type questions.

Care to point me to the Competition Commission investigation, Google seems not to be featuring it highly, which is odd given their antipathy.

There are not many companies the size we are talking about that have not had fines levied against them for cartel or competition law infringements, I can't think of one off hand certainly all the top ones have. Criminal activities I could not comment either.

Just Google " Apple anti competitive practices" and you will be inundated

The rest of the EU have kicked out the Samsung ban with the exception of Germany who I believe will soon follow suit.

 

[artyman]

That's a very interesting claim of prior art, As is Apples claim Samsung infringes the aesthetic design of the iphone and ipad. Normally the argument is over the technology IP not the design, bizzare

This brings back memories of the "Look and Feel" spreadsheet sagas of yesteryear"

 

[Dryce]

I always find this anti-Apple stance rather strange, in the same way I find the Apple groupies strange.

What makes you think I'm anti-Apple.

As usual you assume motivation from somebody's stated observation.

 

[Dryce]

That's a very interesting claim of prior art, As is Apples claim Samsung infringes the aesthetic design of the iphone and ipad. Normally the argument is over the technology IP not the design, bizzare

You use the weapons available.

Apple have very little actual hardware technology. They acquire exclusive rights to use suppliers' technology. Nothing wrong with that.

And they patent or copyright what they can in their designs. Nothing wrong with that - and lots of companies do it - except that the it seems to be possible to patent the obvious as opposed to the innovative.

 

[Sp!ke]

Apple might be big but they are not in the same league as Samsung,

Huh?

I thought I read the other week that Apple has more cash reserves than the US government. Whilst I realise the US is up the creek, when you think of their spending, its quite something if Apple really do have more money than the government. Pretty scarey in fact.

I dont think Samsung are doing quite that well.

 

[Sp!ke]

I was playing with this tablet in 2003 - The iPad design wasnt new. Hell this even had a USB interface and 7 years on, most tablets still dont have this feature.

 

[Dryce]

I thought I read the other week that Apple has more cash reserves than the US government. Whilst I realise the US is up the creek, when you think of their spending, its quite something if Apple really do have more money than the government. Pretty scarey in fact.

I dont think Samsung are doing quite that well.

Banks appeared to have more money than governments.

Apple are able to make money through a streamlined product offering for which they can charge high margins while achieving significant volumes.

That makes them a very clever and smart company. Very few companies achieve that position even if they work harder.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

What makes you think I'm anti-Apple.

As usual you assume motivation from somebody's stated observation.

I dont really care if you are are or aren't, your postings come across as anti-Apple, that's just the way it looks in black and white to me and I was making an honest observation.

You have this rather bizarre way of saying something that's not giving a personal viewpoint and then you try and pick apart someone elses point.

Edit: apart from when you are salivating over the delightful Gordon Brown...

 

[Charles Morgan]

There are not many companies the size we are talking about that have not had fines levied against them for cartel or competition law infringements, I can't think of one off hand certainly all the top ones have. Criminal activities I could not comment either.

Just Google " Apple anti competitive practices" and you will be inundated

The rest of the EU have kicked out the Samsung ban with the exception of Germany who I believe will soon follow suit.

I googles those exact words and got numerous references to the Competition Commission - of India that is. Not exactly what most people would consider to be the Competition Commission - a UK body with some credibility.

As to the rest, Samsung got the second largest anti-competitive fine in US history, and would have been done on a different cartel point if it hadn't dobbed the others in. It may be a big beastie, but it doesn't seem to have much luck with the US judicial authorities and massive anti-competitive infringements will not do its credibility in court any good - having a long history of cheating is never really a good idea when arguing that you are pure as driven snow.

Personally I don't really care who wins or loses, it is a complete irrelevance to my life. However, the notion that Samsung will win because it is bigger is certainly novel, my money normally going on someone (as Dryce suggests) with a very long and successful track-record of understanding and fighting IP battles, oh and a US company in front of a US court too.

 

[flango]

I googles those exact words and got numerous references to the Competition Commission - of India that is. Not exactly what most people would consider to be the Competition Commission - a UK body with some credibility.

As to the rest, Samsung got the second largest anti-competitive fine in US history, and would have been done on a different cartel point if it hadn't dobbed the others in. It may be a big beastie, but it doesn't seem to have much luck with the US judicial authorities and massive anti-competitive infringements will not do its credibility in court any good - having a long history of cheating is never really a good idea when arguing that you are pure as driven snow.

Personally I don't really care who wins or loses, it is a complete irrelevance to my life. However, the notion that Samsung will win because it is bigger is certainly novel, my money normally going on someone (as Dryce suggests) with a very long and successful track-record of understanding and fighting IP battles, oh and a US company in front of a US court too.

There are also references to the competition commission in Europe and Federal trade commission in the USA if you go in enough pages. I personally don't care who wins either as I am not a fan of either companies products but my money would still be on Samsung because of it's firepower and links into US trade.

As for a US company in a US court then that means absolutely nothing most of the big US IP litagation cases in the Oil and Mining sector against US companies found in favour of the European company. I agree this one is different a South korean Company Vs a US company which could yield a different result.

Guess we wait and see the outcome

 

[grober]

What Steve Jobs is good at is inventing things that people want. Its achieved by using fairly innovative hardware [quite possibly invented/developed by someone else] in a way no-one else has thought of. Linking that with easy to use [ but sometimes limited] software to CONTENT!!!! which you also supply exclusively. So often its the application that makes a piece of hardware successful, witness the success of the initial apple computer--- its sales only took off with the development of a "killer app" software the VisiCalc spreadsheet--then they couldn't make enough of them!. He's not foolproof as several of his products have bombed in the past. Remember the first Lisa and Mackintosh. The Mackintosh and its progeny the Macbooks only survived to today possibly because the Mackintosh was popular with desktop publishing pros of the time helped by the invention of the Postscript Laser printer and Adobe software. We mark computer development time lines with certain hardware [ because they are objects we can identify/touch] but in reality it's usually the more ephemeral software application that drives things forward. It took Jobs a while but I think he finally understood this better than anyone else. I always remember that Bill Gates when confronted with the first browsers like Netscape said that Microsoft wouldn't bother developing their own browser since the internet would never catch on!

 

[Spinal]

Having worked with Apple for a while, I'll be following them a bit more keenly. Jobs was the brain and the driving force behind the company's progress...

He still is on the board, so it's not like he's left the company high and dry... but it will still make an interesting watch...

 

[John_geek]

Steve Job is the greatest man and he changed the world.

 

[snoop51]

oh and a US company in front of a US court too.

And this is IMO key. Anyone remember Airbus winning the huge contract to supply the US Airforce with new cargo planes? Boeing cried to the US Senate and it got reversed. US companies do NOT lose to foreign companies in US courts. BP was only principal contractor in the last Gulf Spill, the companies whose equipment & methodology failed were US companies. Not that I'm saying the Yanks are protectionist