Ondrej Holzman The iPhone 5 was referred to in internal emails by top Samsung executives as a "tsunami" that must be "neutralized," newly released documents in the Apple vs. Samsung. Dale Sohn, the former president and head of Samsung's US division, advised the company to devise a counter-plan to counter the new iPhone.
“As you know, with the iPhone 5 comes a tsunami. It's coming sometime in September or October," Sohn warned his colleagues in an email on June 5, 2012, roughly three months before the new iPhone was introduced. "According to our CEO's intentions, we have to come up with a counterattack to neutralize this tsunami," Sohn said, referring to the plans of JK Shin, head of the South Korean company's mobile business.
The release of this correspondence, instead, is Apple's plan to show the jury that Samsung was afraid of the iPhone at the highest levels and that its statements about creating original products with original features were not true, but that the South Koreans were only trying to copy its features to improve their devices.
An even older email sent by Sohn to Todd Pendleton, the director of marketing for the American division of the company, on October 4, 2011, shows that the iPhone caused real wrinkles for Samsung executives. On that day, Apple introduced the new iPhone 4S, and Samsung once again realized that they had to react. "As you have stated, we are unable to attack Apple directly in our marketing," Sohn wrote in an email, citing the fact that Apple is a key customer for Samsung for various components for mobile devices. However, he proposed a different solution. "Can we go to Google and ask them if they're going to launch a campaign against Apple based on the many better Android products that will be available in the fourth quarter?"
Sohn has been with Samsung since the 90s, currently as an executive advisor, and was called as a witness to describe Samsung's transformation from developing dumb phones. During his testimony, Sohn admitted that Samsung has struggled with smartphone development. "Samsung came very late. We were behind," said Sohn, referring to Samsung's situation at the end of 2011. However, everything changed when a new marketing manager took over that same year. The campaign "The Next Big Thing" was launched, which significantly disturbed Phil Schiller, the head of marketing at Apple, as the first days of the trial showed.
The new marketing chief was Pendleton, who admitted in court that when he joined in 2011, he didn't even know Samsung made any smartphones. That just showed what a problem Samsung has with branding. “I think people know Samsung because of TVs. But when it came to smartphones, no one knew about our products,” Pendleton said, deciding to start from scratch and build a brand new brand built around Samsung's “constant innovation” and selling the best hardware on the market. "Our goal at Samsung is always to be number one in everything," Pendleton said when asked if his company had any plans to beat Apple.
The Apple-Samsung trial entered its third week on Monday, when the aforementioned depositions and document release took place. Apple ended its part on Friday, when Christopher Vellturo's trial he explained, why should Samsung pay over two billion dollars. The matter should come to an end after Samsung calls the rest of its witnesses. This will probably happen at the end of next week.
I don't know why you keep digging in the past. iphone 5 is gone, rather focus on what will come. Instead of real masturbation updates how when and who wrote about the iphone, I think no one cares anymore
The editors are not involved in this, the court is. They are just informing about it here. What's wrong about it?
If it wasn't as Apple claims, Samsung has the opportunity to defend itself in court. By the way, I have top lawyers.
I'm rather fascinated by how much "interesting" correspondence gets out.
That internal employees would be such trolls - on both sides???
interesting that almost all other (even foreign) websites write about the fact that apple is afraid of samsung and other competitors. Only the local fanatics wrote it backwards..
We have already reported on this too, just read the entire page. We cover the complete court process. First it was Apple's turn, now Samsung's, which is why the "anti-Samsung" documents are now being pulled.
It's interesting that you didn't read P. Schiller's statement properly, who was dissatisfied with the work of the advertising agency that Apple uses... that Apple is afraid of Samsung can only seem like your wet dreams.
Apple is suing Samsung over patents, not performance. Apple does not have a patent for creative campaigns, there are a lot of companies in the world that have successful creatives. Well, if questionable patents were to be taken out of Android, Samsung would be left with a half-raw scumbag, which even the best campaign wouldn't save
I'm looking forward to Jablíčkára becoming a magazine about the judiciary, of course nothing bad :) It just maybe shows desperation not on the part of Apple, which is getting harder and harder to get people interested, and of course on the other hand - there isn't that much stimulating content to write about.
Another way to copy - I use my iPhone in the WP8 service and I can't help but wonder how iOS7 is copied from WP8 in some parts of the system. I worry more and more about the fact that Apple does not know what to do and is quite clueless. At least that's how I feel about all of this, maybe I'm wrong...
I wonder how you see the similarity between WP8 and iOs7? One thing cannot be denied to Microsoft and that is that their system is really different. I have tested both systems and found no fundamental similarity.
Since I set the white background of WP8, working with sms, emails or calls did not seem different to iOS7, the same basis in animations. Yes, the iOS typography is not so distinctive, but the similarity is there, working with gestures, multitasking.
Microsoft already set an interesting trend with the flat design concept, and Apple seems to be drawing on it. Moreover, when I look at the iPhone5c and Lumia 620 (year 2012) in the same color design, the similarity is probably not accidental ;)