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Comment by batgaijin | Hacker News Reader

Are you serious?

What do you call the patent war between Samsung, HTC and every manufacturer of Android phones and Apple besides a proxy war?

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I will call it a patent war, not a jihad (I'm tired of reading religious analogies attached to technology, they are an easy trick to perform on the readers mind)

And, you know, there are PLENTY of companies involved in patent wars and we don't routinely position them on the "obsessed against their competition" category. They are just litigious. In some of the examples you mention the Android manufacturers are the ones suing Apple, not the other way around. Are they "obsessed" with Apple?. Are they carrying a jihad against Cupertino, as well?

Totally agree. I work at an eBay Inc. company, and I feel like we announce both a new partnership and a new lawsuit with Google every week. Welcome to the valley.

It's overblown because if Apple were really upset at Samsung they wouldn't be supplying parts for iPhone 5. Remember, according to court filings Apple approached Samsung first to try to settle it before resorting to legal means.

Happening already:

The Korean Times is reporting this morning that "Apple has reduced purchases of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels for tablet computers from Samsung Display amid the deepening patent disputes, said a leading market research firm, Friday. Market experts said that the move is aimed at minimizing its reliance on Samsung parts."

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/09/apple-cu...

At a certain point, Apple is going to run out of partners to piss off.

They have over $100 billion in the bank. With that amount of money, there will always be someone willing to partner up with Apple.

Speculative at best. High density display sales are ever-increasing across the market - it makes sense for Apple to diversify the supply chain. That said, it makes little to no sense to feed your competition purely from a business standpoint. Samsung can of course continue to sell their parts to other OEMs.

There have also been reports that Apple offered to purchase exclusive access to some of TSMC's foundry capacity in order to diversify away from Samsung for processor fabrication, but TSMC prefer to keep their options open. Apple's problem is that only Samsung operates at sufficient scale to be able to guarantee delivery in the volumes Apple needs.

I think you don't realize just how big Samsung is. If you're making hardware, it's not like you can just drop a partner like Samsung because of legal troubles in another department. They are huge, and it's hard to replace them over night.

Samsung corporate is $100bn+ and the mobile is only ~$20bn, so this is a valid point. On the bigger issue here, though, it does seem if apple is being a bit emotional in the whole thing. They are the most profitable/successful company in the world right now. $700bn is insane market cap, its 2-3x GE under Jack welch. They should be 100% focused on kicking ass with product. Buy some map companies or whatever. Spend $1-Xbn on that and they will make it up in marketshare and stock price.

That same emotion drives passion that results in amazing products. I'm not sure you can separate the two.

I agree with your premise, but not your conclusion. Counter-example: Look at pro sports. Those guys/gals live off emotion. They train themselves to be passionate, but incredibly focused. When they mess up, they distinguish physical mistake from "mental error". The latter is lack of focus. Wrong thing at the wrong place and the wrong time... Its not lack of motivation, passion, skill, or dedication.

I would call it the same shit that's been happening between almost every tech company since the early 2000s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_wars

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