In an interview with MIT Technology Review, Young Sohn -Samsung’s President and chief strategy officer revealed that he uses Apple’s products. He also went on to state that currently the Cupterino based company has a better Ecosystem than Samsung.
The superiority of Apple’s ecosystem is a known fact for many of us, however, it’s still surprising to hear an executive dishing out high praises to a fierce competitor.
“I’m responsible for driving strategy and innovation globally,” Young Sohn stated in the interview. “My job is to work with our team in the U.S. and Korea, including the CTO and M&A office, to identify new technologies and markets around the world.”
Young’s role reminds me of this famous quote from Tim Cook:
[quote] So just to be clear, I wouldn’t call that a process. Creativity and innovation are something you can’t flowchart out. Some things you can, and we do, and we’re very disciplined in those areas. But creativity isn’t one of those. A lot of companies have innovation departments, and this is always a sign that something is wrong when you have a VP of innovation or something. You know, put a for-sale sign on the door.
Everybody in our company is responsible to be innovative, whether they’re doing operational work or product work or customer service work. So in terms of the pressure, all of us put a great deal of pressure on ourselves. And yes, part of my job is to be a cheerleader, and getting people to stop for a moment and think about everything that’s been done.[/quote]
Important points from the interview:
[quote] Your most high-profile competition is with Apple, based here in Cupertino. How much does that drive this strategy?
We see Apple as a very innovative company. They are a customer of ours, and they are a competitor of ours. But there are 6,000 startups here. When you look at where venture capital dollars are spent, more than half are spent right here, globally. That’s what makes this area really interesting for us
Can you say more about why these technology categories are so important?
OK, so think about Apple compared to Samsung. I use a Mac, actually, at home. I’ve always used Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad. I also have the Galaxy. So I’m a great example.
If you look at the strengths of Apple, in a way it’s not the product per se. It’s that consumers like their ecosystem such as iCloud. I like that my family 6,000 miles away in Korea is able to see my schedule and see all of my contacts and photos. It is sticky, but it is a proprietary architecture.
Look at your phone [pointing to my Samsung Galaxy Nexus]. It’s a better phone, in my view. It’s a better display. It’s faster. But eventually the connected ecosystem is really critical.
I think we have probably the largest platform in the world between the devices and displays and televisions we sell. We actually provide more devices that are interacting with consumers than anyone in the world. But if you think about our experiences, it’s device-centric. It’s experienced by itself. It’s not experienced in a connected way. So we think we can provide a lot more things than what we are doing today with an open ecosystem with our partners.
Wait, you are still using Apple products?
At work I’m using Samsung devices; Apple at home, mainly because all of my systems and files are done that way. That’s sticky, you know? However, I did figure out how to sync all of my contacts and all of my schedules between the two different systems. You can do it. It’s a bit of work, but it is possible.[/quote]
Source: MIT Technology Review
