Best friends turn to foes. The relationship between Samsung and Apple started out like a perfect match. Apple, as the world's fastest growing company - in terms of revenue and cult-like popularity, set its ambitions clearly. Led by the legendary and luminary founder, Steve Jobs, Apple was on a path to be the world's most admired brand and most valuable company. There was no doubt about it.
Apple's ambition was so high that not many companies in the world are able to draw any near comparison or even support them. Samsung, known as Asia's fastest rising star in tech world, shares similarly audacious ambition. Few years back, Samsung had already overthrown many of the Japanese electronic makers (Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba just to name a few) who used to be the King of the industry. From washing machine to fridge. From home theatre systems to mobile phones. From laptop to television.
Since few years back, Samsung had been number one in few highly competitive sectors. Two of them are the semiconductors and LCD / LED panel makers, both of which Samsung had become the largest player.
This made Samsung the natural or obvious choice for Apple. The partnership between the two started with Apple's selection of Samsung to be its semiconductor vendors, supplying various chips from the flash memory to the A5 processors. Through the years, Apple was able to generate high demands for its products and the partnership between two friends were all sweet.
This was until the point when Samsung saw the meteoric rise of the Apple's iPhone (iPhone 3G / 3GS and iPhone 4 / 4S) went largely unchallenged for at least a few good years until Google came up with the Android OS. Having learned enough of what it takes to assemble a device perceived as highly flawless such as iPhone and iPad, coupled with seismic shift from traditional (qwerty-based) hand sets to smartphone hand sets, no one would be able to withstand the temptation of such a promising business.
More strikingly, Apple, through its iDevices - iPhone and iPad - looked set to change how mass computing would be in a few years time. PC sales show no sign of upsurge in growth and the best annual growth is hovering around low 2-4%. Consumers were starting to abandon traditional mobile phone, notably Nokia's symbian-powered sets - and adopting the new keyboard-less smartphone devices.
This was probably the turning point of the once-sweet relationship. Samsung started a plot to challenge its own best friend. Samsung started to build i-clone devices. Whether this was done with much deliberation or little thoughts, this action was like a time-bomb that was just waiting to explode. And indeed, the time-bomb is up and it has exploded to what is now one of the most epic battle ever fought in the world of intellectual property.
Source: http://buyzell.com
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