“Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee has asked the firm’s top management to seek measures including acquisitions to enhance its software prowess, local media reports said on Wednesday,” Miyoung Kim reports for Reuters.
“His remarks come as Samsung is embroiled in an intensifying patent battle with Apple, and after Google unveiled a $12.5 billion deal on Monday to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings, threatening its ties with the Android mobile software platform maker,” Kim reports. “‘Chairman Lee told top managers to come up with various measures including M&As to enhance software competitiveness,’ Kim Soon-taek, head of the Samsung Group office, told local reporters.”
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Kim reports, “Lee made similar remarks in late July, urging managers to boost its software prowess, patent pools and talent at the firm’s annual event comparing Samsung’s vast product portfolios ranging from televisions, handsets and computers against those of its rivals.”
Read more in the full article here.
The other shoe dropped. This could be either Bada, or investments in hardware differentiation.
Sure sounds like Samsung is getting off the Android train.
Bada Bing!
Sounds more like a need for software developers to improve their Bada OS, and a little about having their own IP.
Sure, now all the thieves are looking to buy patents so they can blackmail Apple to let them steal their IP with impunity.
Tech scum rules!
If you can’t innovate, just buy someone. It’s been Micro$haft’s MO for decades.
Android has always been a temporary stopgap for handset makers until they could figure out where the smartphone market was going and then create a software platform. Apple has clearly shown that the integrated approach is the best, that depending on another company for your OS (Google) is dangerous and more expensive.
These companies have all dealt with Microsoft in the past and obviously don’t want to do so again, for whatever reason. Android is keeping them in business for now, but they see that the free ride isn’t so free and that it’s coming to an end. Either Google will have to start licensing IP for Android and then charge for it (a la Microsoft), or Google will just abandon Android or restrict it to Motorola only (more likely). Either way, companies like Samsung are going to be on the sidelines without an OS unless they take charge of their own development.