March 18, 2011
In
Design Leadership, Industrial Design
How Fast is Samsung's Fast Follower Strategy?
Check out the Samsung Series 9, a 13.3″ Macbook Air “fighter” that boasts a thinner and lighter chassis, and a more up to date processor. (Samsung’s i5 vs. MBA’s Core 2 Duo.)
It should be just gracing the shelves at your favorite electronics store and interestingly enough, $50 more expensive than a comparable MacBook Air.
The MacBook Air was launched October 20, 2010, (and today is March 18) so to be exact, Samsung is 4 months and 28 days fast. It is likely though that Samsung had a similar thin and light computing platform already under development, but regardless their designers and engineers would have started working even before Steve’s keynote was over and never slept since.
Via: Mashable
Brian
March 25, 2011 at 10:27 am@bee: Thanks for your comment. What you are saying is not wrong, but there are many ways to do design. What most of us designers are used to is exactly what you have described.
But proof is in the pudding, as @jasper has describe in the Interbrand rankings. However I would like to add, in the consumer electronics industry, Samsung is KILLING almost everyone.
Sure Samsung, may not subscribe to the type of design most of us do, but what they are doing is not wrong as well. They are leveraging on their strengths of vertical integration, and by letting other companies take the first mover risks, they are playing smart in my books.
Jasper
March 24, 2011 at 5:31 amgood strategy in my opinion – I like Samsung a lot and their transformation form a tech-driven company to a global (design) brand (2010 interbrand rank 19 of 100, apple 17 of 100). What apple apple does is great, they create new markets/categories, thats clearly their strategy (apart form the ipod) – being a pioneer. Samsung might have had the same idea and missed the opportunity or let Apple develop the category, and then launch a “me too” product. But that does not mean they will not be successful (good skimming price).
@bee, what design element are you talking about?
bee
March 21, 2011 at 6:13 amsamsung needs to go to design school and then rethink their strategy. I see it as foolish to copy a single element of a product and call it design. An apple is more than a pc in time and space. The experience is not captured.