Samsung designer details rivalry with Apple

8/15/2012 9:29 AM EDT

How's your work/life balance these days?

As for mine: I filed this story at 6am Pacific, my fourth story on the case from yesterday when I also tried to sit in on two unrelated conference calls.

8/15/2012 11:16 AM EDT

http://www.facebook.com/jeeyeun.wang

8/15/2012 11:24 AM EDT

Let me get this straight, you can patent the look of a telephone or flower icon? If true, then Apple can try and sue every maker of icons on Google, which is in the millions now.

8/15/2012 12:18 PM EDT

To work for a Korean company while not being Korean is the most humility experience I have ever encountered. I had worked as a contracted agent for
a few large Korean companies in my professional career.
First there are no secrets between companies. If you need to know something about another Korean company you can always find someone who knows someone who can find what you are looking for.
2nd, There is no thinking on your part. As they say “Home Office Say” Which you must do, no questions ask., even if it’s stupid or wrong.
3rd If you are not Korean you are considered an outsider. It is very rare to be included in any management position, or trusted. This is most humiliating when during a discussion they will talk among themselves in Korean even when they fully understand and can speak your language.
4th – Distrust and discrimination exhibited between Japan and Korea is open.
With the Japanese feeling everything Korea has done is a copy of something.
All they have done is to obtain licenses from other companies and improved on them.
5th. – I feel for the woman you mentioned in the article. She should not feel she was singled out as they have the same attitude toward and treat their own Korean employees the same.

8/15/2012 1:36 PM EDT

Hey Rick, do you have a link that encapsulates/archives your entire coverage of the trial? If so what is it? I'm sure you've already gone over it but I'm interested in what are the main contentions in this case--what does Apple need to prove to win? Is it just that Samsung copied the industrial design (rounded corners, flat front) or is it overall design look and feel? In looking at these pictures, it looks pretty obvious that Samsung copied the icons and layout of the icons. It makes sense for a phone icon to be a phone and for email to be an envelope (Gmail, AOL, etc. have used an envelope for a long time), but the settings icon in the shape of a cog is interesting. Is a cog a common symbol for settings? Certainly the overall size and layout of everything you've shown in this seems at least to me to be an obvious attempt at copying Apple's design. BTW, who provided you with the art? Apple, Samsung or the court?

8/15/2012 2:35 PM EDT

The fight will continue, but as a result of Samsung's development it happened that the entire world is now being able to use smart phones easily and in affordable way, otherwise in the 60% of the globe iPhone was neither having reach nor affordable. Still it is the same case iPhone is not affordable to all in the developing countries and they are also not looking for business there, in that case Samsung has really extended the reach, but yes I am not in favor of copy if it was really and intentionally done.

8/15/2012 4:01 PM EDT

Wow, that's a lot of coverage. Great job

8/15/2012 9:36 PM EDT

Interesting to see the first-hand account of an engineer. I've no doubt that Samsung and Apple both are very demanding companies. I've certainly read as much about Apple. Not necessarily fun places to work.

Me, I don't like to be overly rushed, because that's when people do mediocre work. But some of that is personalities, so it's hard to generalize.

I have some co-workers who seem unable to get their act together unless they have a looming deadline. Hard to work with that type of person, for me. Because it invariably puts ME in a bind, as they always find themselves.

As to "home office say," I would find that exceedingly difficult "up with which to put."

8/16/2012 6:41 AM EDT

Work life balance. For software engineers its tough to balance life and work. The stress of release is sometimes very high. Its better to take a break. Life is much more important.

8/17/2012 11:07 AM EDT

Rick,

Great coverage. This in the end brings out the peripheral issues as well: when large companies get large they act like people from the society around them (turn wars, rivalry... need to dominate their space). They are essentially a microcosm of society around them but driven by business consideration which at some level translate to the least common denominator personal needs of a group (shareholders, owners, management, employees...).

Almost every company I know benchmarks their products and designs against the market leader or at least the top 5 players. Strategic marketing is looking at the competition all the time. The coverage gives a lot of insight to people who are not familiar with the overall process.

Work life balance wise and the comments about particular multi-national companies...as somebody I know once said: "every organization is as much a meritocracy as human nature allows."

8/17/2012 5:27 PM EDT

Good discussion here.

I'd love to hear more stories and opinions about your work/life balance...or lack thereof

8/17/2012 7:18 PM EDT

Sorry, but I call b.s. on the statement that they were "sleeping as little as two hours a night." To the extent it has any truth, it reflects gross negligence on the part of management if they had knowledge of this and allowed it. Not only is it neglectful of the health of their employees, but it is detrimental to their own desire to produce a quality product on schedule and on budget.

The effects of sleep deprivation are well-known and include, among other things, confusion, lapses in memory and inattentiveness. Chronic sleep deprivation can make a brilliant person seem like a complete idiot -- simple mathematics can become difficult, steps in a routine procedure can be overlooked, and higher-order cognitive reasoning skills disappear.

The product these engineers designed was a complex system, and when finished, it worked as intended. It could not have been designed by a bunch of people who were reduced to the status of imbeciles due to lack of adequate sleep. Sure, we've all experienced an all-nighter, or a night of only a couple hours of sleep. Most humans are pretty worthless the next day after such a night. A few might be able to sustain 2 or 3 nights in a row of such abuse -- but not night after night on a sustained basis.

If I'm wrong and it's true that they did this to themselves, then it's a good thing they were only designing a cell phone and not something where safety of the end user was at stake!

8/18/2012 7:21 AM EDT

Agreed if the employees sleeps only 2 hrs a night..theres something really wrong in the management. I guess the person looses its ability to work on innovation if he/she doesnt take proper rest. Surprised that Samsung made such a comment. Its more emotional than trying to prove a point.

8/19/2012 9:59 PM EDT

Agreed. I have never met anyone who could work sustained 70h+ weeks without turning into a zombie. Note that I said "work", not "play golf with other bigwigs".

8/19/2012 10:10 PM EDT

I had ever worked for three days and two nights continuously when I was young. and still had 3hours for eating food and 3hours for nap totally
and then had a sleep nearly a whole day long.

I can't believe that that woman can afford such tough work.

needn't a month, only a week work like that will distroy her health.

6/11/2013 11:45 AM EDT

I have worked for a large company where people were working 120+ hr weeks and management made the statement to the entire group "don't care how many people are carried out in body bags, get the product done".

6/11/2013 12:13 PM EDT

Why does this remind me of the '80s and '90s battles over "Look and feel"?
Lessee, if a game consumes dots then it is a rip-off of Pac-Man. Microsoft's desktop Recycle Bin could not look like or perform the same function as Apple's Trash can. Quatro's spreadsheet could not have the same menu items as Excel (Or was it Lotus 1-2-3?).
Your use of the letter "A" cannot resemble my drawing and use of the letter "A" is what it sounds like to me.

6/12/2013 9:23 PM EDT

said Wang, an attractive middle-aged Korean woman with a stoic demeanor, dressed in a salmon denim blazer and simple black dress.

Why does the article mention she is attractive? When was the last time an article about a male engineer mention 'handsome'? Subtle discrimination here.