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Fojar38 posted:Yeah, but those brands are no Sony's or Toshiba's. Their success is chiefly in China and other middle-income economies and even China's titans like Alibaba have had difficulty breaking into high-income markets. ....Lenovo is incredibly successful in the west, not to mention that its largely due to the amount of exposure the IBM Thinkpad got them. They had pre-penetration of the market.
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May 25, 2016 16:29
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I thought that Lenovo bought its product line from IBM And yeah that is why I qualified the smartphone makers with "other middle-income economies"
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May 25, 2016 16:30
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Yes, IBM sold Lenovo their laptop unit so they did start off just selling Thinkpads. As time goes on their new products get worse and worse (at least from the perspective of somebody who likes their old Thinkpad.)
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May 25, 2016 16:31
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I do know that Lenovo is one of the champions of lovely low-end office computers that can be bought in bulk but yeah, unlike those other manufacturers they were riding IBM's brand.
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May 25, 2016 16:32
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Mozi posted:Yes, IBM sold Lenovo their laptop unit so they did start off just selling Thinkpads. As time goes on their new products get worse and worse (at least from the perspective of somebody who likes their old Thinkpad.) The Yoga is okay, some of the new Thinkpads are tempting, but only the high end ones. The low end ones are utter garbage.
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May 25, 2016 16:42
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Fojar38 posted:I thought that Lenovo bought its product line from IBM Lenovo had been building the ThinkPads for like 15 years before they bought out the business from IBM. Lenovo is also the top global personal computer manufacturer since 2013 - in 2014 18.8% of all personal computers sold were Lenovos.
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May 25, 2016 17:08
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Are we really going to consider it a Chinese company for 15 years because the manufacturing was outsourced to China?
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May 25, 2016 17:26
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Fojar38 posted:Are we really going to consider it a Chinese company for 15 years because the manufacturing was outsourced to China? Why not? The company built the machines in China, with Chinese parts.
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May 25, 2016 17:29
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CommieGIR posted:Why not? The company built the machines in China, with Chinese parts. Because then we'd have to consider a whole lot more than Lenovo to be "Chinese companies." Is Apple a Chinese company because a ton of Apple products get manufactured there?
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May 25, 2016 17:32
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Fojar38 posted:Are we really going to consider it a Chinese company for 15 years because the manufacturing was outsourced to China? The entire "IBM" personal computer stuff was in China for that long, and specifically Lenovo's hands. It's not like Lenovo was just some random Chinese company that bought the name, they'd been building and designing it all in house for a long time.
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May 25, 2016 17:33
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Fojar38 posted:Because then we'd have to consider a whole lot more than Lenovo to be "Chinese companies." Is Apple a Chinese company because a ton of Apple products get manufactured there? Most of the products assembled in outsourcing are assembled by private firms not owned by the company whose products are being manufactured there. Like Foxconn, who manufactured Apple products for ages. A Taiwanese company, sure but they own the plants themselves.
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May 25, 2016 17:34
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fishmech posted:The entire "IBM" personal computer stuff was in China for that long, and specifically Lenovo's hands. It's not like Lenovo was just some random Chinese company that bought the name, they'd been building and designing it all in house for a long time. I don't know much about Lenovo's history but the wikipedia page for the ThinkPad says that it was being designed by IBM right up to Lenovo's acquisition? I dunno, just seems really generous to consider any company that manufactures in China to be a Chinese company.
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May 25, 2016 17:40
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Fojar38 posted:I don't know much about Lenovo's history but the wikipedia page for the ThinkPad says that it was being designed by IBM right up to Lenovo's acquisition? This is getting pedantic. The fact is Lenovo is a chinese manufacturer. They manufacturered the ThinkPads. IBM setup the designs specs initially, but Lenovo was well able to take that over upon acquisition. That makes Lenovo both a Chinese company and Lenovo Thinkpads, even prior to IBM selling the business to them, a Chinese product.
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May 25, 2016 17:44
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Fojar38 posted:I don't know much about Lenovo's history but the wikipedia page for the ThinkPad says that it was being designed by IBM right up to Lenovo's acquisition? IBM was mostly restricted to external case design by the end of the official IBM ownership of the branding. Lenovo's own staff had been designing the internals and all that for years before the nameplates finally switched over. Sure, when Lenovo was first contracted to manufacture ThinkPads et al in the 90s they had no input, but there was a long term switching of responsibilities. Of course it's weirder than that. A lot of Lenovo's design team is in the US and many ThinkPads and other Lenovo laptops are now built by a joint venture they have in Japan.
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May 25, 2016 18:13
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fishmech posted:Of course it's weirder than that. A lot of Lenovo's design team is in the US and many ThinkPads and other Lenovo laptops are now built by a joint venture they have in Japan. Even weirder, half of Foxconn's stuff is designed by US firms, the parts made in Japan and Taiwan, and then assembled in China.
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May 25, 2016 18:14
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feedmegin posted:Not really? Lenovo in particular is a widely known brand of laptop in the West, and the other two make cheapo smartphones which are edging up in market share worldwide. They're not Apple-premium or anything but they're definitely a thing in the developed world. Lenovo is the only one with name recognition and that's only because they bought a far more famous computer company They recently also bought Motorola and it looks like quality and design are both going down the shitter there too
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May 25, 2016 18:22
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CommieGIR posted:Even weirder, half of Foxconn's stuff is designed by US firms, the parts made in Japan and Taiwan, and then assembled in China. Its because none of them trust the chinese to do anything more than assemble. Timb spent a gently caress ton of time in China sorting out product lines and such long before he was CEO of apple.
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May 25, 2016 18:30
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Mr. Nice! posted:Its because none of them trust the chinese to do anything more than assemble. Timb spent a gently caress ton of time in China sorting out product lines and such long before he was CEO of apple. Naturally. Didn't Tim Cook also have to deal with one of the Foxconn factories producing legit iPhones and iPods during the day, but making fakes during the evening/night?
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May 25, 2016 18:33
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Mange Mite posted:Lenovo is the only one with name recognition and that's only because they bought a far more famous computer company Lenovo didn't buy IBM, they bought a couple product lines to add to ones they already own, and their best selling lines don't come from IBM at all.
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May 25, 2016 18:35
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fishmech posted:Lenovo didn't buy IBM, they bought a couple product lines to add to ones they already own, and their best selling lines don't come from IBM at all. yeah ok fishmech
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May 25, 2016 18:36
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There's DJI, they make drones. Southern China is still the go to place in the world for semi-conductor components. Even high quality Japanese capacitors and sensors were made in China. Tech parts is a bit mundane but nonetheless is a lot more difficult compared to other components like textiles.
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May 25, 2016 18:38
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The problem with these Chinese companies is they don't really have distinct brands. Lenovo could have sold its laptops without IBM, but they were just generic models with no brand loyalty until they bought the ThinkPad name (which they didn't even buy, I believe IBM lent it to them for X number of years). There are some very good, inexpensive phones coming out of China, but they all look the same and run someone else's software so there's nothing getting them repeat business except low prices. I guess buying old down-on-their-luck Western brands kind of solves that problem. Except no one sells their brand when it's number one, so they're getting stuff that's been in decline for years like Haier buying GE's consumer appliance business. Which brings up a question, do any Chinese companies have a significant amount of IP or patent value? I didn't know if the Chinese government did a better job of protecting local trademarks and intellectual property than it did of foreign companies'. caberham posted:There's DJI, they make drones. I always forget they are a Chinese company. They seem to break the mold of most homegrown technology companies in China. Krispy Wafer fucked around with this message at 18:45 on May 25, 2016 |
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May 25, 2016 18:42
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Does IBM even still make consumer PC's? It feels like they've been making supercomputers for the most part as of late.
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May 25, 2016 18:50
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Krispy Kareem posted:The problem with these Chinese companies is they don't really have distinct brands. Lenovo could have sold its laptops without IBM, but they were just generic models with no brand loyalty until they bought the ThinkPad name (which they didn't even buy, I believe IBM lent it to them for X number of years) Pretty sure they bought the name "ThinkPad" in perpetuity plus the right to keep putting "IBM" on it for a limited number of years. See the T60, which postdates the switchover to Lenovo but still says "IBM Thinkpad" on the logos. Fojar38 posted:Does IBM even still make consumer PC's? It feels like they've been making supercomputers for the most part as of late. No, that's the part they sold to Lenovo. A lot of their revenue is from software and services now, not even supercomputers.
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May 25, 2016 18:52
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Are Chinese smartphones any good? I mean I will never buy one as long as China is an authoritarian country but are they basically just cheaper Iphones?
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May 25, 2016 18:53
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Fojar38 posted:Does IBM even still make consumer PC's? It feels like they've been making supercomputers for the most part as of late. IBM does special purpose computers still, like supercomputers, but they are mostly a consulting firm now and live off their patents. They do a lot of R&D still.
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May 25, 2016 18:55
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Fojar38 posted:Are Chinese smartphones any good? I mean I will never buy one as long as China is an authoritarian country but are they basically just cheaper Iphones? All smartphones are Chinese. Where do you think the factories are? If you mean specifically the ones branded by Chinese companies, from what I hear they're similar to the rest but a lot of them aren't available in the US so English reviews are more sparse. Huawei apparently likes UIs that are less functional than stock Android which is unfortunate but not uncommon. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 19:00 on May 25, 2016 |
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May 25, 2016 18:57
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Eletriarnation posted:Pretty sure they bought the name "ThinkPad" in perpetuity plus the right to keep putting "IBM" on it for a limited number of years. See the T60, which postdates the switchover to Lenovo but still says "IBM Thinkpad" on the logos. I thought they had the ThinkPad name for only so long. Kind of like how Microsoft bought Nokia's phone business and Nokia couldn't make new phones for X number of years so as to not confuse the two. But it's possible they only lost access to the IBM name after so long. I know IBM agreed not to make PC's for a period of time. Not that anyone would voluntary enter into the PC market at this stage, but I guess they wanted to give themselves a way back, in case people started hankering for beige boxes again.
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May 25, 2016 19:04
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DJI is a great company because it originally started in Hong Kong  Chinese smart phones are adequate. It's pretty decent value for consumers and you can get good specs at low prices. Software wise they look fine but are notorious for cannibalizing open source software or being some sort of apple clone (like most of android). Chinese smart phones and electronics are pretty much the go-to place for low income groups and developing countries.
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May 25, 2016 19:23
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Eletriarnation posted:All smartphones are Chinese. Where do you think the factories are? Samsung would like a word... Edit: 'cannibalising' open source software by using AOSP isn't really a problem, that's what AOSP is for. I kind of prefer the companies that take it as-is rather than the ones that try and jazz it up (hello TouchWiz). feedmegin fucked around with this message at 19:35 on May 25, 2016 |
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May 25, 2016 19:25
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feedmegin posted:Samsung would like a word... "Cannibalize" in this context might mean that they're violating copyleft licenses by not making the source available.
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May 25, 2016 20:00
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Krispy Kareem posted:I thought they had the ThinkPad name for only so long. Kind of like how Microsoft bought Nokia's phone business and Nokia couldn't make new phones for X number of years so as to not confuse the two. But it's possible they only lost access to the IBM name after so long. Nah, the specific business deal was that Lenovo got all the ThinkPad intellectual property straight up, and then over the next few years also bought the rest of IBM's x86/x86-64 based computer lines. They further got the right to still label ThinkPads as "IBM" for 5 years, but they stopped doing that after about 3 years because market research showed they didn't need it anymore. IBM in theory can come back into the personal computer market any time, even the day after they sold off the IP, but they sold out intentionally. They'd also need to have entirely new branding compared to anything they had before as far as names go, unless they wanted to buy back the IP from Lenovo. And all that just to get back into the low profit margin business of PCs.
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May 25, 2016 20:32
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feedmegin posted:Samsung would like a word... You have a point, it looks like some of their manufacturing at least is based in Vietnam. I was saying that primarily in response to the implied claim that the iPhone isn't Chinese, since as far as I know they are all made there.
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May 25, 2016 21:21
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The iPhone isn't Chinese despite the fact that they are assembled there. It was designed by an American corporation, it's software is developed by an American corporation, the profits from the sale of iPhones go to an American corporation, and its assembly chain goes through the USA, Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, and China. The sheer ease of switching from manufacturing in China to manufacturing in Southeast Asia is a demonstration of this. The notion that anything with a "made in China" sticker on it is a wholly Chinese product demonstrates a complete lack of understanding how corporate manufacturing chains work, along with a not insignificant dose of "the only labor that matters is the physical assembly."
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May 25, 2016 21:30
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Fojar38 posted:The iPhone isn't Chinese despite the fact that they are assembled there. It was designed by an American corporation, it's software is developed by an American corporation, the profits from the sale of iPhones go to an American corporation, and its assembly chain goes through the USA, Taiwan, South Korea, and China. Not to mention the fact some products made in China aren't even sold there. I can't recall specifics, but I'm pretty sure Chinese people couldn't buy X-boxes or iPhones until well after they were released in the United States. fishmech posted:Nah, the specific business deal was that Lenovo got all the ThinkPad intellectual property straight up, and then over the next few years also bought the rest of IBM's x86/x86-64 based computer lines. They further got the right to still label ThinkPads as "IBM" for 5 years, but they stopped doing that after about 3 years because market research showed they didn't need it anymore. Fair enough. I didn't realize Lenovo was still using the ThinkPad name. Krispy Wafer fucked around with this message at 21:36 on May 25, 2016 |
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May 25, 2016 21:33
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Mange Mite posted:Lenovo is the only one with name recognition and that's only because they bought a far more famous computer company They've had the Thinkpad brand for a decade and it's still a good brand. A decade is ample time to gently caress something up. So they get the credit now. In general this thread is a bit of a headscratcher for me. What exactly is the anti-china thesis? Reminder that economically China is where South Korea was circa 1979 when South Korea was a basket case under martial law and no one had heard of Samsung or Kia. Japan was at China's level in the 50's before Honda had even made a car.
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May 26, 2016 01:19
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Fojar38 posted:Are Chinese smartphones any good? I mean I will never buy one as long as China is an authoritarian country but are they basically just cheaper Iphones? Chinese smartphones are 'pretty good' in that they're identical clones of Samsung Android phones. Unfortunately Android is a Linux and therefore for autistics and third worlders, so Apple still wins. They're cheaper Galaxies, not cheaper Iphones asdf32 posted:They've had the Thinkpad brand for a decade and it's still a good brand. A decade is ample time to gently caress something up. So they get the credit now. Neither SK nor Japan were Leninist single-party states. Neither of them were or are particularly liberal in opinion but they at least had the political economic structures set up in a liberal way, China meanwhile very much does not. And the state-backed export investment economic model, as we've seen with Japan, fails once you've saturated foreign markets for exports and reached the technological frontier in terms of capital investment, which China has. And both Japan and SK, despite having nominally liberal institutions, have failed miserably at moving beyond this economic problem for the last 25 years, so there's no reason to think China will outside of orientalist navel-gazing about 5000 years of history and civilization-state stuff, which seems to have receded pretty strongly in the last year or two icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 01:49 on May 26, 2016 |
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May 26, 2016 01:36
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icantfindaname posted:Chinese smartphones are 'pretty good' in that they're identical clones of Samsung Android phones. Unfortunately Android is a Linux and therefore for autistics and third worlders, so Apple still wins. They're cheaper Galaxies, not cheaper Iphones While it's true they're cheaper Galaxies, for every 4 iPhone users in the US there are 6 Android users. In Western Europe it's more like three and a half times as many people have Android phones compared to iPhones - see the EU5 chart in the link below. Android is, uh, not exactly niche the way desktop Linux is. http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-ios-v-android-market-share-2016-1
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May 26, 2016 15:52
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icantfindaname posted:Neither SK nor Japan were Leninist single-party states. Neither of them were or are particularly liberal in opinion but they at least had the political economic structures set up in a liberal way, China meanwhile very much does not. And the state-backed export investment economic model, as we've seen with Japan, fails once you've saturated foreign markets for exports and reached the technological frontier in terms of capital investment, which China has. And both Japan and SK, despite having nominally liberal institutions, have failed miserably at moving beyond this economic problem for the last 25 years, so there's no reason to think China will outside of orientalist navel-gazing about 5000 years of history and civilization-state stuff, which seems to have receded pretty strongly in the last year or two SK GDP/c has grown considerably in the last decade or so, even though the job market there got a lot tougher the economy has been going up steadily. They are still surprisingly mediocre for a high-income country, but 15 years ago they were poorer than a bunch of Eastern Europe. It gets conflated with Japan but they aren't really the same.
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May 26, 2016 17:49
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icantfindaname posted:Chinese smartphones are 'pretty good' in that they're identical clones of Samsung Android phones. Unfortunately Android is a Linux and therefore for autistics and third worlders, so Apple still wins. They're cheaper Galaxies, not cheaper Iphones So repeat again: China is where Japan was in the 50's and south korea in the 70's. Japan's 90's stagnation after achieving first world standards of living is literally a dream for the Chinese now. China's economy isn't close to fully capitalized (obviously given their GDP ~$7k). I'm on board with the idea that liberalization is good but do I need to say again that sk wasn't democratic until the late 80's? A lot can change in a decade or two.
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May 27, 2016 02:01
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