Comments on: Maybe a herd but it ain’t Microsoft’s doing

By: Sibu

Sibu — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:07:58 +0000

With the Droid and Chrome OS, Google is now at a similar decision point w.r.t mobile devices: Be like MS – control the OS and get different vendors to produce the handsets OR be like Apple and have an own device.

Google seem to be betting both ways – Already several vendors are building Android phones. But there are heavy rumors that a Google branded superphone is in the works, taking the Apple approach to control the end to end consumer experience. With several opinions on why they shouldn’t be doing the same (like alienating the h/w vendors)

Am sure the price pressure is a given for the handsets, so only time will tell if the price pressure will drive the overall quality of the hardware down OR if Google will be able to hold the vendors to higher quality standards. Maybe Google superphone will become THE gold standard in terms of hardware quality and OS utilization?

Reference –
Why Google should not sell own handsets – http://bit.ly/2h1Kfb
Google Superphone really soon – http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/17/thegoogle-phone/

By: Sukumar

Sukumar — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:06:51 +0000

Thanks for the kind words Saraswathi. Welcome back to sastwingees after a long while. It is interesting that so many people share my experience and yet there is no major mainstream media article on this subject. Isn’t that strange? Good luck with your Dell.

By: Saraswathi

Saraswathi — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:00:02 +0000

@Sukumar:

Excellent analysis!!

You have brought out the reasons very well. Even I have wondered why recent laptops were so unreliable while old ones worked like w/o much maintenance. You really have brought out insightful points.

We bought a branded HP desktop in 2002 and it worked perfectly till 2007. My dad then went for a HP Compaq Notebook (don’t know the model) in 2008 and the hard drive crashed within 3 months after buying.

I bought a Dell Inspiron 1520 with Windows XP in Dec 2007. It is working perfectly so far. *Fingers crossed*

Never used a Mac though.

By: rajagopal sukumar

rajagopal sukumar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:45:40 +0000

Ranjit,
Thanks. Yes, they could have multiple price points for people. That is a good idea.

In my view, if you drive down prices beyond a point, it will come at the expense of quality. I think that is happening in the PC industry.

Kumaran,
thanks for the insights on Chinese manufacturing. I think the Chinese innovations are in the area of how to produce the same thing cheaply. I am not the world has paid much attention to how they accomplished this miracle. I am sure the low wages of the Chinese are a factor. But when you look at India, which arguably has similar low cost wages, we are not able to replicate what the Chinese have done in manufacturing. Unless we in India understand what the Chinese have done, Chinese manufacturing will eat our lunch as it is already doing.

I don’t think the low prices is because of not doing R&D either. Even that the Chinese are trying to rectify by pumping billions into research.

By: Kumaran

Kumaran — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:06:51 +0000

Ranjit,

Just a point on chineese technology and cheaper . The have major advantages in terms of cost of production

1. 70% don’t invest in R&D . They just blatantly copy.
2. They don’t have marketing costs
3. They have 0 cost after sales-support. Dell recalled and replaced batterires which had a problem, this has to be costed upfront.

For normal manufacturers the above percentage is pretty huge and then there is production costs. Typically that is only 30% of total costs.