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Former Apple CEO Creates an iPhone Competitor
An anonymous reader links to Fast Company's profile of Obi Worldphone, one-time Apple CEO John Sculley's venture into smartphones. The company's first two products (both reasonably spec'd, moderately priced Android phones) are expected to launch in October. And though the phones are obviously running a different operating system than Apple's, Sculley says that Obi is a similarly design-obsessed company:
"The hardest part of the design was not coming up with cool-looking designs," Sculley says. "It was sweating the details over in the Chinese factories, who just were not accustomed to having this quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design. We had teams over in China, working for months on the floor every day. We intend to continue that process and have budgeted accordingly."
Obi is also trying to set itself apart from the low-price pack by cutting deals for premium parts. "Instead of going directly to the Chinese factories, we went to the key component vendors, because we know that ecosystem and have the relationships," Sculley says. "We went to Sony. It’s struggling and losing money on its smartphone business, but they make the best camera modules in the world."
" quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design"
Yeah, that's nice and all, but what we really want is usability. Freedom from the advertising deluge. Control. Everybody and their brother can make a svelte 3D mockup that looks beautiful. But in the end it's going to come down to software. It's why Apple ruled the roost early on. A beautiful piece of garbage is still a piece of garbage. And, tbh, we have enough of that out here at the moment.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I can see you do not own an iPhone either.
That being said, I think the Nexus 5 really was the best looking phone on the market when I bought one. Mostly because it did not have that goofy curved back that some Samsung phones have, nor that absurdly large bezel that Motorola has. I hope the Nexus 5mkII looks the same.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Apple has nothing to worry about.
The article says they're not aiming at Apple. Instead they're actually jumping, feet first, into the commodity smartphone market. Which might seen suicidal, but, again as the article points out, that's where Scully actually excels (and probably why he didn't get as far with Apple, which was never commodity based, when he was at the helm.)
Essentially he's going to be selling nice, but not spectacular, Android phones, and using branding to differentiate the phones in the market. And he'll probably make a success of it because instead of having the overhead of a giant electronics company to contend with, unlike say Samsung, he's just having a third party put together a design, then outsourcing the manufacture of the thing, concentrating largely on quality (which affects brand) rather than features (which doesn't.)
It's not actually that exciting to nerds. The news is probably orgasm-worthy though if you work in marketing.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Non-competes are often not enforceable after a person's employment contract is over. If a company doesn't want you to work for a competitor, they can usually be required to compensate you for that, typically in an amount equivalent to salary for the duation of the non-compete.
They may be able to successfully sue you for NDA violation, as long as they have a sufficient factual basis to show that it was more likely than not that you had actually violated the NDA. But that's not the same thing as a non-compete.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I call BS. The people running Chinese factories understand quality far better than most of the world. They are constantly concerned with it and have a mandate to move up the quality and technology chain, else lose their shirts when Vietnam or Bangladesh or some other poor Asian country hits the power curve part of the contract manufacturing business.
This guy must have picked the cheapest of cheap desperate Chinese manufacturers and then decided to ride them like hell on details. Apple, LG, Samsung and so many others build the top-quality devices in China. Anyone credible over there knows what they're doing.
Sure, the guy ran Pepsico for a while.
But his business management was so damn pedestrian that he took Apple from a growing company with a complete lock on the education and AV markets to an also-ran that became so afraid of innovation (mostly because Jobs had gone wild, running after any and everything, before that) that the company stagnated nearly to death.
He was okay as a brand manager. But absolute shit at actually LEADING the company and bringing forth new products.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!