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Samsung To Launch Fruitless Assault On Apple

Samsung may be a big player in the global electronics market, but when it comes to mp3 players they still trail a long way behind Apple.

Joining a race late is never a strategy that puts you on an equal footing with your competitors, but that’s exactly what Samsung did when they rolled out their range of portable music devices last year. They also hamstrung themselves by sticking rigidly to NAND flash storage, an area in which they ARE the market leaders, but despite the obvious potential for the future such players still lag behind hard disk-based devices such as the standard iPod.

This problem is obviously vexing Samsung as they have revealed a blueprint for the future that they hope will enable them to catch up with Apple (perhaps “make up some of the lost ground on Apple” would be more appropriate).

Number one plan - take on iTunes head to head. “We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease,” said Samsung President Choi Gee-sung, at a press conference. “Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided,” Choi explained.

Attacking markets where iPods are not yet dominant would seem more like a rear-guard action than a full on assault, but past history shows that many companies have tried to create an iPod-killer and failed, so perhaps Samsung’s strategy is sensible. However, markets like China where music piracy is rife will be difficult ones to convert to paying customers.

Source: MediaCenterPCWorld

Add comment October 31st, 2005

Vodafone Introduces Mobile Phone Vending Machines

Lost your phone and need to make an urgent call? Just arrived in the UK and find that your roaming rights have been revoked? Need to ring totally anonymously so that the police have no idea who made the call that detonated that car bomb or harassed your ex-wife? Vodafone to the rescue with their QuickPhone kiosk!

Yes, Vodafone have unveiled what is, in principle, a great idea, but that has too many potential problems, in the humble opinion of TechSmec.com, to be ethical. The QuickPhone kiosk offers three models between £30 and £60. Additionally, a SIM (subscriber identity module) card-only pack can be brought for £5, just in case you have got your mobile with you but need that instant anonymity. Manchester is the first lucky town to get a dispensing machine, but Vodafone hopes to roll them out in train stations and airports around the country.

“These will be popular with people who need a phone in an emergency, either because they have lost their phone or it has run out of battery,” said a Vodafone spokesman. “They are for people who know what they want and who don’t want to go through the rigmarole of talking to a sales assistant.”

TechSmec.com hopes the machine will use the same corkscrew mechanism as your standard crisp dispenser. We plan on hovering around a QuickPhone kiosk when we see one hoping that someone’s phone got stuck on the way out. A soft kick just there should do it….

Add comment October 31st, 2005