rockfort93 Super Moderator
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| Subject: Samsung Executives saw Steve Jobs’ death as the best opportunity to attack iPhone Thu Apr 17, 2014 8:53 pm | |
| Samsung Executives saw Steve Jobs’ death as the best opportunity to attack iPhone Internal communication between top Samsung executives presented during the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung trial has revealed how the Korean company viewed Steve Jobs’ death as “the best opportunity to attack iPhone.” Michael Pennington, then Samsung’s vice president of sales operations and head of national sales for its STA wrote the following email to STA president Dale Sohn on October 5th 2011, the day Steve Jobs passed away: - Quote :
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“Unfortunately, Steve Job’s passing has led to a huge wave of press coverage of Apple’s and iPhone’s ‘superiority,’ all created by the, “passionate, tireless, perfectionist…” The point here is the there is an unintended benefit for Apple, since the external messages by 3rd parties are all highlighting and/or supporting the consumer perception that Apple products are superior, since Jobs’ was such a visionary and perfectionist. What consumer wouldn’t feel great about purchasing a device developed by such a person. Sorry to continue to push this issue, but I have seen this far too long and I know this is our best opportunity to attack iPhone. If there is no consensus on the approach I initially proposed, I will stop pushing, but I would like to better understand our strategy so I can align with that.” As you can see in the screenshot below, Pennington had replied to an email thread which discusses the feature comparison of the iPhone 4s, which was launched on October 4th with Samsung’s Galaxy SII and Motorola’s Droid Bionic, both running Android 2.3; the BlackBerry Bold running BlackBerry OS 7; and HTC Titan running Windows Phone 7.5. Pennington had proposed in the previous email that they should “use Google to attack Apple”, as Samsung did not want to attack Apple directly as they were a large customer (Samsung still makes chips and other components used in iOS devices for Apple). Todd Pendleton, Samsung’s chief marketing officer in the STA, replied to the email with the following response: - Quote :
- “Hey Michael, we are going to execute what you are recommending in our holiday GSII campaign and go head to head with iPhone 4S.
We are working on a very aggressive strategy touting our advantages in hardware and software. In the process we will demystify the perceived Apple advantage (ecosystem/services) by showing how consumers can easily switch to Android and have more personalization/more choice by being part of the Samsung ecosystem. More to come soon… Best TP” Samsung later launched a campaign which included a Facebook page that compared the “Cutting edge” Galaxy SII to “Old school” Apple’s iPhone 4, an early 1990s cellular phone and two cans on a string. An internal marketing document also reveals Samsung launched a “Global PR reviews” campaign to get glowing reviews for the Galaxy SII from some of the top tech blogs such as Engadget, CNET, Engadget etc. We all know that there is cut throat competition in the hyper competitive smartphone market, but the email exchange between top Samsung executives exposes the ugly side of it. We can debate whether Samsung blatantly copied Apple products or was inspired by their products, and I admit the patent war between the two companies is getting ridiculous, but this just makes me sick. |
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