Samsung to Seek Ban on iPhone 4S Sales in France and Italy

[Rocketman]

Leveraged buyout

There is actually a realistic way for Apple to take over both Samsung and HTC, and buy the diminished value assets of Kodak.

Apple could form a company in China where businesses have access to the central bank's funds at near zero interest rates, put 5% down on the approximately $1350B of Samsung and $573.42B of HTC and $0.336B of Kodak. Samsung is privately owned so may be difficult to buy. At least a Chinese firm would not have anti-trust issues to deal with as they regularly buy sovereign and primary industry mines, steel mills, and basic industries and ports.

$1924B @ 5% is $96B. Apple has the cash.

95% loan or $1828B at a rate of 2% per year would be $35.56B in interest which is more than covered by reductions in dividends and cash from operations of the acquired companies.

Think big-ly.

Rocketman

 

[Leaping Tortois]

It amazes me to this day that ppl can actually argue that 100M+ iPhones have sold since its launch because Apple just knows how to market well and no other reason. Its a great phone, get over it. People buy it because its great, and because it works better then every other phone.

To some people of course, that means Apple has somehow managed to brainwash multi-millions of smartphone users into using an outdated, crappy phone because some dude is dancing around in a white room to a catchy beat.

The foolishness of Apple haters never ceases to amaze me.

And yet nowhere in my post did I mention hating apple. All I said was that there are other phones that have similar build quality to apple. That doesn't say that apple's is bad, just not unparalleled. And then you go on a spiel to defend apple from my 'attack.' It's not an attack to say they're well presented, it's a complement.

 

[gnasher729]

Apple should pressure Obama to apply trade sanctions on South Korea, why should they treat an American company with such disrespect ?

I wonder if you are a fanboy, or a parody of a fanboy. Comments like this make me believe you're a parody.

 

[Oletros]

I wonder if you are a fanboy, or a parody of a fanboy. Comments like this make me believe you're a parody.

I think that there are a lot like them, really, I can't believe some posts can be made by rational people or by people with a little glimpse of reality

 

[Vegasman]

Why is a curved phone better?? I'd have to see one first hand to know if it is really better. The only possible benefit would be that it hugs you face? (but then you are more exposed to its radio waves?).

Your thumb can swipe more ergonomically.

 

[akugyaku]

This nonsense has got to stop, the only people that will suffer because of it is consumers.

The patent system needs to be overhauled from head-to-toe.

 

[gnasher729]

I understand what both of you're saying but is there any evidence that Samsung demanded more from Apple then from other licensees? If there is such evidence that it seems that decision would be cut and dry. Also, what would be considered a "reasonable" deviation in licensing costs? For example: five years ago Nokia licensed IP from Samsung for $xxx. Today Apple wishes to license the same IP from Samsung but this time Samsung asks for $yyy sighting inflation, higher R&D costs, etc. Would that not be considered reasonable?

What's important is that there may be a disagreement about the exact amount of payment, but if it is even remotely reasonable then Apple can put that money into escrow until a court decides how much should be paid, and there is no way Samsung can stop Apple from selling. An injunction to stop sales is to prevent damage that cannot be prevented otherwise. If people buy Samsung tablets because the design of the iPad was copied, that damage is done and cannot be undone. If Apple doesn't want to pay as much as Samsung demands, that damage will be undone when Apple pays.

 

[CWT1965]

I wonder if you are a fanboy, or a parody of a fanboy. Comments like this make me believe you're a parody.

Not at all

Apple = innovators, transformed the way we live our lives and the electronics industry (iTunes, iPod, iPad, multi touch, mouse computing), make their billions out of sexy gadgets

Samsung = Make billions out of downmarket and middle market tv sets and microwaves

Comparing Apple with Samsung is like comparing Amstrad to Bang and Olufsen

Samsung should treat Apple with respect, I hope Apple screw them into oblivion

 

[etrinh]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I am getting confused. Is this macrumors or samsungrumors.com??? I really don't understand all the Apple bashing. I even wonder if samsung has their own forums where members go to talk about stuff and then apple fans comes in bashes samsung. Just zoo friggin weird.

 

[Mac American]

Smasung

Taiwan news recently reported that Apple makes up 2% of Samsung's electronic component sales. Loosing them as a supplier would not be that big of a deal, its not like there is a shortage of NAND, right. On the other hand Apple relies on them for a large portion of the iPhone's components. Look at Samsung mobile patent portfolio compared to Apple's it is huge.

Both companies just need to settle and sign cross licensing agreement and compete on their own merits.

----------

There is actually a realistic way for Apple to take over both Samsung and HTC, and buy the diminished value assets of Kodak.

Apple could form a company in China where businesses have access to the central bank's funds at near zero interest rates, put 5% down on the approximately $1350B of Samsung and $573.42B of HTC and $0.336B of Kodak. Samsung is privately owned so may be difficult to buy. At least a Chinese firm would not have anti-trust issues to deal with as they regularly buy sovereign and primary industry mines, steel mills, and basic industries and ports.

$1924B @ 5% is $96B. Apple has the cash.

95% loan or $1828B at a rate of 2% per year would be $35.56B in interest which is more than covered by reductions in dividends and cash from operations of the acquired companies.

Think big-ly.

Rocketman

Samsung is in no way going to sell out to Apple, it' 10% of South Korea's GDP. Not to mention the largest ship builder in the world, and has a vast collection of traditional industries. Does Apple want to manufacture steel and ships?

 

[rockrigo]

I wonder how much Apple pays for all the legal fees with this Samsung thing compared to how much it would cost to just buy Samsung & all its patents.

hahaha this is my fav joke

 

[Winni]

Hitler finds out about iphone 4S : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e8fBNNCaz8

I'm afraid that this modified clip from "Der Untergang" is only funny when you do NOT speak and understand German. This thing should have been dubbed, the subtitles alone don't make it funny.

This guy from Cologne did it right with Star Wars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFxGLir5-cQ

(But I admit that it is only funny when you're a German native speaker.)

 

[576316]

Jealousy!

Samsung need to literally go to hell and stop this crazy jealousy they have over Apple. It's like bloody Cat and Mouse! Samsung are not going to win, they're a terrible company with equally terrible mobile phones. They're fault for paying into the bollocks that is Android.

 

[Rocketman]

Does Apple want to manufacture steel and ships?

Apple China certainly does.

As I said in my post:

At least a Chinese firm would not have anti-trust issues to deal with as they regularly buy sovereign and primary industry mines, steel mills, and basic industries and ports.

Rocketman

 

[a.gomez]

love it, Apple wants to to manage their own patents and tell other companies what their patents are worth - Apple started this nonsense hope SAMSUNG buries them - crap iOS has always been the dumbing down of Apple anyway

 

[kdarling]

Samsung is forced to license its IP under FRAND terms because they form the standards of modern tele-communications.

Samsung is only "forced" by group agreement if their patents were included in the ETSI standards patent pool.

Samsung chose to have their technology be part of the standard.

Apparently these patents were not included as part of the essential standards (and are not covered under FRAND terms), but were used to enhance WCDMA operation by many companies, including Infineon.

Samsung has also admitted in previous interviews that they believe Apple is already paying to license these patents through their chipset maker.

Apple said they thought they had paid the patent fees via Intel, however Intel didn't buy Infineon until this year. Therefore the fees for all the chips that Infineon built before Intel took over, have not been paid.

Apple has, I think, conceded that point and now the debate is only over what is a reasonable amount.

Samsung is asking for 2.4% of the chip price per patent. E.g. if the chip costs $20, and there's three patents, then about $1.50 per phone.

Apple wants the patents declared to be covered under FRAND, to get a lower rate than that. It seems likely to me that they will at least eventually get a lower rate.

TL;DR - Some of Samsung's patents are not covered under FRAND rules, but Apple would like them to be.

 

[Aegelward]

Not at all

Apple = innovators, transformed the way we live our lives and the electronics industry (iTunes, iPod, iPad, multi touch, mouse computing), make their billions out of sexy gadgets

Samsung = Make billions out of downmarket and middle market tv sets and microwaves

Comparing Apple with Samsung is like comparing Amstrad to Bang and Olufsen

Samsung should treat Apple with respect, I hope Apple screw them into oblivion

You must be unaware of Samsung's high end products, the U8000 series for example...

Then again you might consider those $5000 televisions middle market against B&Os $20,000 products.

Like it or not, Samsung and Apple occupy the same market space, they are not the boutique and bespoke company you seem to imagine them to be.

I agree that Samsung's tablets are unnervingly close to Apple's designs, but i estimate in a generation they'd diverge from Apple's, Perhaps they should put to work whoever's designing their high end televisions into their computer devision.

 

[fenwah]

Just remember Samsung, your consumers in those countries can easily stop buying all of your products. I know if I as a consumer were in that position, I would boycott all Samsung products. Unreal.

 

[jrawsterne]

The number one reason people buy Apple products is because it's cool to own an Apple product. The medias free advertising and hype of Apple products has had a domino effect. People started buying Apple because it was cool, more people saw this and wanted to be cool aswell and all this snow balled.
Unrivaled quality, only your subjective opinion. I've supported Apple products and other tech products and Apple's break just as often as the rest.

Yeh right. You do know that it is not cool to say cool anymore? (well for about 8 years now?)

 

[guzhogi]

How arrogant, do you realise how big Samsung are? Besides as all the analysis concurred in the todays Guardian article, they now have the better phone too

I had no intent to be arrogant. I apologize I came off that way. As I said in a different post, I am so not an expert in economics, hence why I asked this question.

Something you (and everyone else here) should know about me: always assume positive intent. I never mean to be rude, arrogant or anything like that. We may have different opinions on a topic, but I try to always to accept the fact that I might not have all the info.

 

[rockrigo]

Just remember Samsung, your consumers in those countries can easily stop buying all of your products. I know if I as a consumer were in that position, I would boycott all Samsung products. Unreal.

should prob go ahead and either throw away your Apple stuff or tear it down and replace the Samsung parts that are inside

 

[KingCrimson]

Genuine inventions once can understand, but many of these suits are concerning things that should never have been granted patents, and are by no stretch of the imagination "Intellectual".

Yeah only Apple has "genuine inventions", everybody else are just patent trolls.

 

[ArchaicRevival]

Samsung is simply trying to get revenge. But their stuff DOES look like Apple's. From USB cables, to chargers, to the method of boxing the device. To the outer looks of the packaging, to the UI, to the device design... All very similar, and Apple designed this stuff first... Samsung copied. Plain and simple.


Image

I have a 2009 13" Macbook Pro and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (I only got it cause it was discounted to tax only lol) and if you put both screens side by side, you can see that it's the same exact design almost as if the galaxy tab could be a macbook pro screen if it was 13" instead of 10.1


So yeah, Samsung ≠ Innovation.

 

[jrawsterne]

The problem being, though, that samsung is gaining momentum with its phones. They're good. My GS2 is a really good phone and I'm loving it. Apple really needed to release the iPhone 4s at the same time to undershadow the GS2, but they didn't. Now they've released the phone incredibly late (4 months in tech is a long time) and it's nothing special. I mean, Siri could be good, but that's a time will tell thing, not a 'wow I must have it' thing. I would not be surprised if the Galaxy HD (or nexus prime) take some decent market share from iPhone after this.

You make a good point, but 4 months in software dev time is only a short time and from what im seeing with Siri, Apple could have something quite special there. It does actually seem usable and well implemented, a non paid personal assistant for you on your phone, i'm liking it. If it works and people start using this feature then others will notice and iphone will still be as desirable. If its crap then Samsung could do quite well out of all this.

I think either way we win as consumers because the tech-field is filled with quite amazing products now. Its just a pity we are in a global recession with less cash to throw away on all these amazing products.

 

[Popeye206]

This just seems like a "tit for tat" sort of battle.

It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.