About the return of the brand Motorola to Russia, the change of leadership of Samsung Mobile and the chance to personally test new items that have not yet entered the market HTC …
Motorola
Stay Here, I'll Be Back
Terminator Part II
No matter how many geeks indulge themselves with the thought that they are some kind of elite buyers, which all companies should be equal to, in reality they are not at all responsible for the main sales. Most people buy smartphones out of emotion rather than logic. Only a few will calculate the number of parrots in synthetic tests, study the color rendering diagrams of the screen or be interested in the features of the chipset used in the smartphone. The rest will focus on the fashion and sonority of the brand rather than anything else. Some of these buyers will even find a review of their favorite model on the Internet, but that's just a little sense in this. They will read the text as if through rose-colored glasses, diligently looking for confirmation of their own opinion in it and ignoring everything else.
Quite often there is a situation when a buyer wants to buy the 'coolest' smartphone for such and such an amount, but at the same time, some of the brands are swept aside. He himself admits that he is not particularly versed in technology, but he still knows for sure that LG cannot be a good purchase by definition, but Samsung tears up a heating pad like a dick.
Where does the confidence in the 'coolness' of this or that brand come from? First of all, this is advertising, the work of sales consultants, the choice of close friends and colleagues and other similar factors. Very often competent marketing here means much more than the actual state of affairs, and the opinion of friends has much more weight than the advice of a forum 'geek'.
It should be noted that at the first stage, the company is really interested in good reviews from 'geeks', who are often ready from the bottom of their hearts to promote successful solutions among friends. But the fashion for brands is inert, and the real return on all the 'geeks' reviews will be at best in a couple of years. Everything here works according to the famous student principle – first you work for the record book, then it works for you. Having been known as a round excellent student, you can relax for a while – it would not even occur to anyone that you are not doing your homework, sleeping in lectures and messing around wherever possible. But winning such an attitude is very difficult, even if you are a genius three times, the teachers will have to be convinced of this.
In the opposite direction, this principle works the same way. Once a brand has received the stigma of being 'unfashionable' or 'backward', it simply cannot get rid of it. Even if, after a long series of failures, a really cool device with a good price / quality ratio is released, this will not give any explosive growth in sales. Journalists will praise, geeks will admire, and buyers will still choose the 'right' brands they are used to. No one will ever believe that a student with a reputation for being a hopeless failure will be able to pass all exams with five. Here, in any case, they will say that he either gave it to someone's paw, or managed to write it off.
Speaking about the prospects Motorola in the Russian Federation, you need to remember that for Lenovo this is a premium brand. No matter how much these devices cost in the US market, we will not have any amazing price / quality ratio by definition. Smartphones under the brands Lenovo and Motorola will be divided into different categories and practically will not overlap. The former will almost certainly be sold under the slogan 'cheap and cheerful', while the latter will be sold under the slogan 'expensive, high quality, premium'.
The problem is that consumers have short memories. A brand that was very fashionable a couple of years ago will not cause any special emotions now. Some specific models, some chips are remembered – but the former desire to run after any phone with the same nameplate is gone. If it was about competing with B-brands, there would be no questions. But in the major league, the name Motorola has long lost weight.
At the word “Motorola” potential buyers will not recall any Motorola Milestone, and certainly not Moto X or Moto G, which were not officially sold in the Russian Federation at all. Rather, it will be the famous Razr clamshells or the sensational ROKR series at the time. To modern Android all this has about the same relationship as my favorite Siemens C60. And although I would buy the same phone even now, I doubt very much that any modern Android smartphones with the same Siemens nameplate would make an impression on me.
The Moto Maker service could partially correct the situation. The choice of materials and colors of the ordered smartphone case is a really unique and very interesting feature. But whether it will be launched in Russia is a very, very big question.
In general, it's a shame that in Lenovo there was so much delay in launching Motorola in our market. Even in the Russian office this was expected a year ago, to say nothing of ordinary fans of the brand. Even then Motorola it would have been quite difficult, but a good lineup, problems of competitors (starting with the same SGS5) and the upcoming price war in Russian retail would have been a very good help. And how things will turn out next year, we can only guess. Anyway, I sincerely wish Moto good luck.
HTC
The fact that we did not meet your expectations is not our problem. It's your problems
Andrey Arshavin
Unlike Motorola the company HTC did not go anywhere and was in full view all the time. But her smartphones attract less and less attention every year, now few of the ordinary buyers will remember that once the smartphones of the Taiwanese company were quoted no less than Samsung devices.
And it seems that smartphones HTC are quite good for themselves, and journalists still speak quite warmly about this brand … but the company no longer has the former people's love. And that affects sales more than a hundred positive reviews.
The company found a rather original solution – this week HTC announced a testing program for technology, within which users will have a chance to test a smartphone that has not yet been released for sale. It is not difficult to guess that the fans of the brand, who will be delighted with the new toy in any case, will first of all want to take part in the testing. If memory serves, at one time something similar was done in Nokia – new smartphones were given for the test not only to professional journalists, but also to the owners of popular fan sites, which obviously guaranteed a lot of positive reviews on the net. Moreover, the reviews are completely honest – there is no need to try to bribe a fan, it is enough just to give him the opportunity to speak out. Moreover, he usually has nothing to compare the new product with, for him it will be really the fastest smartphone with the newest hardware.
The only problem is that HTC take NDA very seriously. At one time, this company even sued over-talkative fans, in particular for the first reviews HTC of One S, which appeared on the network too early. Such cases do not at all contribute to the people's love. And they will obviously be, because the temptation to tell others about the miracle of the new product that has fallen into the hands of novice testers will be very great.
If the strictness of the NDA does not scare you, then you can try to apply for participation in testing on a special website https://preview.htc.com/
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Samsung
When the leader of the pack misses, he is called the Dead Wolf, although he is still alive, because he does not have long to live.
Rudyard Kipling
Rumors about the imminent resignation of JK Sheen began to circulate a year ago. Apparently, then the head of the mobile division of Samsung was really on the verge of resignation, and many simply did not believe that he would be able to stay at the helm. He was also blamed for the low sales of SGS5, which turned out to be 40% lower than the initial forecasts of the company, and the protracted game in the 'own' mobile OS Tizen, which was very expensive, but had practically no prospects, and many other things.
Despite everything, then JK Shin managed to retain his post. But still, even at that moment it was clear that this was not so much a re-election for a new term as a suspension of the sentence. Akela missed, which means the pack needs a new leader.
Now we can say that this resignation did take place, albeit in a much milder form. And it should be noted that Jay Kay Shin managed to leave with his head held high, which cannot but deserve respect. Over the past year, the situation has changed dramatically – the disastrous (by Samsung's internal standards, but by no means by market standards) SGS5 gave way to the Edge line that unexpectedly attracted users. Buried in advance by analysts Tizen OS now has a serious chance of becoming a 'state' OS in Russia. The operating profit of the mobile division of Samsung in the last quarter increased by one and a half times ($ 2.1 billion versus $ 1.54 in the same period a year earlier). Today, JK Sheen definitely does not look like a manager who has failed to cope with his duties. Rather, like an honored veteran who decided to step aside and make way for the young.
The other day, Don Jin Koh was appointed president of the Samsung mobile communications division (president of the mobile communications), now he will be responsible for all the current work of the mobile division. At the same time, JK Shin is not going to quit his job at the company and will focus on a long-term strategy for the development of mobile devices.
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It can be assumed that in practice these permutations will lead to two things. Firstly, there is clearly no need to wait for any cardinal innovations in the upcoming SGS7 or SGS8. The company will try to slowly but surely build up the existing advantage, as far as possible without making sudden movements and not substituting aggressive Chinese companies like the same Xiaomi. Samsung has already stated that the coming years will be very difficult for mobile technology, it will be difficult for absolutely all manufacturers, and against this background, no one is expecting any special records from the mobile division.
On the other hand, the development of truly unique devices like folding tablets and folding smartphones will continue with might and main. The company clearly invests a lot of effort in this direction, and sooner or later it will yield results. Samsung's perseverance is definitely not lacking, even though the company is sometimes very clumsy. The first such devices will become nothing more than a demonstration of capabilities, fun toys for rich geeks. About the pricey but completely useless Galaxy Round. The main rate will still go on the classic tablets and smartphones we are used to, which Don Jin Koch will be engaged in. But sooner or later, the ugly duckling will turn into a swan, and the Galaxy Round will replace the Galaxy S6 Edge. And it is very likely that most existing companies will simply have nothing to answer.
As an example, I will cite another Samsung patent, which just managed to appear on the network the other day.
This is a device with a screen that rolls into a tube. When folded, it is a very compact device with a small display. But in the expanded – a real tablet.
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