The recent incident was unfortunate
As in, 'unfortunately, we got caught'.
Samsung staffers slated smartphone arch-rival HTC in fake online reviews - and now a Taiwanese watchdog is investigating. Sammy has since ended the practice of allowing its employees to post anonymous comments, describing the whole affair as "unfortunate" and one that went against its "fundamental principles". It has even been …
I was just thinking the exact same thing. Why is it that they always say something like that only when they get caught.
They then say "We will continue to reinforce education and training for our employees to prevent any future recurrence." like it was some rogue employee that did the deed, rather than an actual co-ordinated marketing strategy. Which I found odd because they admitted that they have suspended anonymous "marketing activities".
" like it was some rogue employee"
It could be + bad management.
Place I worked before we had a marketing goof buy an "opt in email list", then proceed to spam the crap out of people. Said he was not spamming, it was an "email blast". Went to his boss who did the three monkeys routine even when I warned we would be black listed.
Then we got black listed...
Then it was all an unfortunate incident.
It would have been nice to happen to all HTC phones. I bought an Amaze 4G in December 2011. It came, of course, locked. I was able, using HTC's site, to get a code to unlock the bootloader so I can install new ROMs, but I did not get S-OFF.
S-OFF came relatively late, probably 6 months (which means ages in mobile) in the life of the phone, and it implies a wire trick, not only messing around with software. See for yourself http://unlimited.io/juopunutbear.htm
I am not even sure if there are more complicated procedures to get S-OFF on any other Android phone.
The fact that it is hard to S-OFF and the method came late made a lot of developers leave the Amaze 4G, and as a consequence the ROM variety is not that great, which is a factor for me when choosing a phone.
The phone hardware is nice, but HTC would have to be light years ahead of everyone next time I will buy a phone to be even considered in my choice. Before I had an HTC/Tmobile G2, which was easier to S-OFF.
I never owned a Samsung, so I can't comment on that.
"Now the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission has launched a false advertising probe that could clobber Samsung (2011 net income: $18.3bn) with a fine of up to $836,595 (25m New Taiwan dollars, £547,000)."
I'm not sure that "clobber" would be the right word. Better choices might have been "tickle" or "amuse' or "beguile" or "induce laughter in".
Samsung are also deceptively putting other manufacturer's sub-par panels in their TV's. Pretty sly really :-
"Many DON'T HAVE SAMSUNG PANELS - HUGE quality difference"
http://www.amazon.com/review/R32G9D1HHDBR45/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt/177-9464537-3398446#R32G9D1HHDBR45
Yeah, it's called second sourcing. Most manufacturers use components from a range of suppliers -- often from rivals, most obviously when they don't themselves make a suitable component. Hard drives are a good example -- where a manufacturer didn't make a drive of a particular size they'd add one from a rival (and probably the rival did the same).
Fihart: "...second sourcing. .."
But this particular case has a more distasteful stench to it than you're acknowledging. The devil is in the details. Take a close look at the Amazon reviewers comments. Its not that Samsung don't make the components that they need, its that within the same model range, they are *sometimes* using sub-par components from their competitors.
Now why are they ONLY SOMETIMES doing that? And why isn't it necessary to disclose this on the outside of the box? Instead you have to order the TV off Amazon, open it up, and then return it if you find you've been sold a dud. That is pretty sly, because most consumers won't know to check these details... Even if they've read reviews, they won't know their supposedly identical TV model may differ substantially in quality...
It appears that Samsung is playing the same game albeit on a component level. But its the screen for Christ-Sake. I for one find this game a little underhanded. but I'm grateful to the power of the marketplace that disgruntled buyers have used Amazon to spread the word. The power of the branding, eh?