Posted on Saturday 10 September 2005 - Popularity: unranked
Two weeks ago, the analysts over at iSupply announced a possible coup (Yahoo News) about a partnership between Apple and Samsung that would have huge consequences for the portable audio player industry. Since the special media event two days ago, we know that this deal was more than just speculation and now the competition reacts:
The domestic MP3 player industry is sulking, saying the iPod nano owes its exceptionally low price to Samsung Electronics. “Memory chips affect more than 50 percent of MP3 players’ prices. Apple presumably bought the flash memory chips at a 50 percent discount from Samsung.” But Samsung Electronics executive Joo Woo-sik defends the company. “I can’t tell you the discount rate, but it stands to reason that we expand the range of discount rates for a big buyer like Apple,” he said. “Samsung didn’t mean to do any harm to domestic MP3 manufacturers.”
You know what? Don’t Cry Me iRiver! It’s business, get over it and compete with something else. Competing on price against the iPod nano will be hardly possible over the next months, true, but there are other ways to compete against a product than just it’s price. Apple has proven it over many years, just create an amazing product and the price doesn’t matter that much. Yes, I’m well aware that creating an amazing product isn’t an especially easy task, but that’s now the only option left and I’m sure someone will be able to come up with something interesting, something worth the higher price. At the end, we the consumers can only benefit from it.
Fredi
PS: This will be the last iPod nano post for a while, promised. 
