Taking a big bite out of the Apple!

In relation to a few of my recent blogs regarding the enormous progress made by Samsung in eating away at the Apple share of the smartphone and tablet market, and the Apple response to take it to court and accuse Samsung of outright copying of their coolness and products, a British judge has weighed in on the matter in a significant fashion. 

In what seems to be an incredibly surprising salt-in-the-wound fuel-to-the-fire move, Judge Birss has ordered Apple to run ads stating that "Samsung did not copy" its iPad design. These notices are to be posted in both British newspaper media, as well as on Apple's own website! Almost unbelievable! 

It's one thing to be told that your claim of patent infringement over a device is not going to be upheld, but to be forced into posting what will be de facto Samsung advertisements on your own corporately branded website is something else! Samsung lawyers must have been staring at the judge in awe and disbelief, not least as the judge ordered the notice (i.e. Samsung ad) to remain on the Apple website for at least six months. 

This is a totally unexpected twist on the entire Apple vs. Samsung saga, but one which hopefully might teach the mighty Apple a lesson: outrageous greed is not healthy. As much as the Steve Jobs era was one of explosive creativity and growth for the company, so it was also apparently punctuated with increasing lust for world dominance, and any/all serious competition was to be eliminated or sued out of existence. The Apple's share had to be the lion's share.

Steve Jobs was allegedly behind the whole e-book price-fixing scandal along with various major publishers, targeting the self-publishing kings, Amazon, and Apple are currently being pursued by the US Justice Department for running that "cartel". It is estimated that Jobs' banging of the table for everyone to fall into line, or else, bilked the public out of as much as an additional illicit $100M in e-book price-fixed.cash This is a total disgrace for a company that was already so wealthy, and which targeted the little guys, either producing/selling or buying e-books. 

Cry no tears over (an) Apple, people. They can afford to pay. So another amazing brand has stepped up and challenged them to some good old healthy competition, and has taken a serious bite (or three) out of the Apple? I say kudos to them because those who benefit are you and me, with ever-better devices in our hands for ever-lower (relatively speaking) prices. Apple needs to grow up a little (or a lot) and accept the fact that for the consumers some competition is a great thing, and Apple would not be anywhere today if not for those very same consumers. 

I wonder if part or all of this sour Apple frustration has arisen out of the fact that they know their very own soon-to-be-launched iPhone5 is gonna get its ass kicked by the already pervasive Samsung Galaxy SIII?! Hell, it may well be the case that the Samsung Galaxy SII has even kicked its ass, already! For sure, my uber-cool SII is a better device than any iPhone on the market today, and makes the iPhone4 look small, tired and past its prime, in comparison.


Again, my advice would be to stop moaning and suing, and start building competitive devices instead. Unless with Steve Jobs sadly gone, that level of innovative and competitive brilliance is also sadly missing today?

Samsung is riding high with these new legal developments, their heavy sponsorship of the upcoming London Olympics, and naturally, the firestorm that is spreading globally over the new Galaxy SIII superphone. It appears to me that the Apple is indeed a green one, or has been turned green:; it's called brand envy, or in this case to be more specific, Samsung envy! Now that fact has just got to be the biggest and cheapest piece of global advertising that Samsung will ever experience, and to top it off, the proof will be posted on the Apple website for all to see. That's what I call sheer brand brilliance: getting a sourpuss major competitor to give you free global advertising on their website! Incredible!

Samsung smiles all around the world, it would seem! - Kevin Mc