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Bunnie Huang on China's "Shanzai" Mash-Up Design Shops
saccade.com writes "Bunnie (of XBox hacking and Chumby fame) has written an
insightful post about how a new phenomena emerging out of China called
'Shanzai' has
impacted the electronics business there.
A new class of innovators, they're
going beyond merely copying western designs to producing electronic "mash-ups" to create new products. Bootstrapped on small amounts of capital, they range from
shops of just a few people to a few hundred. They rapidly create new products, and use
an "open source" style design community where design ideas and component lists are shared."
This is why the US is falling behind faster than we think. We are more governmentally encumbered and less capitalist than China in many ways!
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Literally 'Shanzhai' means a fortress on a mountain in Chinese, but it's a equivalent to 'garage' in western terms of innovation process. Both means making things at low cost, labour intensive environment, but doesn't necessarily refer to making things in a real garage or a actual mountain fortress.
Often case the term 'Shanzhai' production implies 'cheap and dirty, but work'. Say, we procure electronic parts from a 'Shanzhai' factory, we expect them to be cheap but not with very high quality.
For temporary profit (that few have participated in) we have outsourced ourselves into irrelevance. As the purchasing power of the increasingly service-based economy diminishes, so do the profits. It is a shortsighted policy - something that MBAs excel at.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Our IP is getting in our way. That is why our forefathers created SHORT TERM IP rights. Now, it is just a money maker for a bit longer, but is KILLING the west.
Not to mention the 150 year-after-Disneys-death copyright. That really helps preserve the wealth of the rich, but at the cost of a stagnating society.
For those intereseted there is small write up with a few pics on the cultural aspects of Shan zhai on:
http://chinayouthology.com/blog/?p=369
Talking to friends in China last week "Shan zhai" anything is a hot word in china now, being applied to mobile phone, fashion, whatever.
While I was there I offered over half a dozen iphone look alikes which can be bought from around 1000 yuan (~£110)
Remind me again, how did Apple start?
I think that this sounds more like a new type of consumer-producer than just piracy, and that the "mash-up" is an apt comparison.
These guys may end up revamping a part of the market with their "hardware shareware", and if they do, I say more power to them. Especially since they are doing more than just plain copies, they are producing products that are, arguably, "improved" models.
Quoth the article, "contemporary shanzhai are rebellious, individualistic, underground, and self-empowered innovators" ... which one of those does the marketplace *not* need? (Mark you, I say "need", not "want"; I'm quite sure they want none of it, but will nonetheless have more of it than they like.)
"Good news, everyone!"
There are already a number of small-amount manufacturers, as you call them. Some are prototyping shops, some will build any number of items for you.
http://www.emachineshop.com/
http://www.tapplastics.com/
http://www.pad2pad.com/
http://www.olimex.com/
http://www.eurocircuits.com/
(no affiliation to any of them)
But you have to supply a sellable idea that's not been done yet, and bear the cost of iterating the bugs out of the design.
Also, and more to the point, the burden of IP is on your shoulders; at least, they're just punching out parts on your behalf and AFAIK that's not been contested in court as of yet.
"Good news, everyone!"
The big thing going for the Shan Zhai is that their component makers are just around the corner. Need a touch screen for you iPhone knock off? Duck across town and talk to "Joe" and buy a few crate fulls off him. No long distance language barriers, freighting, delay, currency exchange or other things that an kill momentum in a project. It's not that different to Silicon Valley, in that it is effectively a technology shopping mall for engineers.
Compare that to Australia, where I live. Manufacturing base is close to zlich. Components have to be procured from overseas and local distributors are just not interested. Most time and effort goes into procurement rather than design. Better be sure of your design too, as deciding to make a design change involves a while new procurement cycle. No ducking down to "the local" to get a replacement. As an engineer, I'm envious.
+2 insightful? WTF? Shanzhai manufacturing is RIPPING OFF OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS, it has nothing to do with innovation, open source, etc. You think a Shanzhai manufacturer is going to let me into his factory and inspect his line? Maybe he'll post his CAD drawings and mold milling specifications on the web? Make a forum post where he reveals the specific material he uses, his suppliers, and the prices and contract terms he got from them? You want to see what shanzhai manufacturing makes? Crapity-crap like this janky fake Wii. I guarantee there's no way it will last more than six months, guarantee it. It's not open source at all, free flow of ideas? If by free flow, you mean one-way flow - to the shanzhai guy and not the other way around. It's "let me rip you off, make a cheap crap copy, add a couple of features from OTHER people's work (features that are probably not well-thought-out, nor integrated well with existing features) and sell it at a discount by disobeying all environmental regulations (China DOES have them), and forcing my workers to work overtime for free otherwise I'll fire them and have them beaten by thugs if they complain. I know more manufacturers than you do, buddy.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This was happening years ago, back in 2005 in my last trip for example.
What is really behind this is a business that is not shackled by the same leg irons that cripple development in the west - for example accountability, itellectual property, patenting, copyright, health and safety, quality management and so on.
The gist of the problem is that you can either have development that is ethical, safe, manageable, legal, and controlled.... or you can development that is rapid, fluid and prone to appropiate and adapt any idea that fits the bill.
It is impossible to have both.
In China you see an emphasis on the latter and in the west you have the former, this is a culture clash of epic proportions. At the end of the day we are all to blame, we all like the idea of promoting western businesses and industry - but we all have a greater desire for cheap DVD players and iPhone clones.
Yes I can appreciate the rapid, innovative engineering this trend shows in China - but behind it is a clash of cultures and ethical and moral decisions that have decimated industy and development in the western world.