My first cell phone nearly three years ago was a Samsung. I really hadn't heard much about them but when I did some research on them three years ago I was really impressed. When I was reviewing large screen TVs it was also very clear that they were the head of the class. They make the largest screens and have some of the absolute best technology.
This position used to be held by Sony of Japan, but Sony has had major cutbacks and about the only product they have going for them is their video game division and even that is questionable as their new portable video game player leaves very much to be desired from my review.
With this morning's announcement of Samsung investing a record $33 billion dollars in creating chip plants by 2012 it is beyond clear that they -- not Sony -- are the premiere electronic player in the world.
In case you did not know it, Samsung provided the NAND flash memory for Apple's new iPod Nano player.
Apple actually followed a Microsoft evil pattern by making a very sweet deal with Samsung. "Bad" Apple put the squeeze on small manufacturers by simultaneously snatching up a good portion of the available NAND flash devices (diminishing supply and driving up costs for other manufacturers) while at the same time offering the Nano for very reasonable prices forcing other manufacturers to lower their own prices and accept thinner profit margins or go out of business, which is exactly what is happened as nearly 200 Asian businesses shut down as a result of Apple's move.
Sure doesn't seem like Apple is playing fair on this one. Seems to me Apple did the same thing when they introduced their original iPod. They grabbed up nearly the entire supply of the tiny hard drives that were only being made by one manufacturer which essentially eliminated any competition because there were simply no parts available for them to compete. No one could build a device until another company started to make similar hard drives.
New York Times September 29, 2005 Registration Required