Quote:
Originally Posted by thejeremyman9
Quote:
Originally Posted by mike@x-ph.com
We were offered the same product from China but turned it down, so we are not accused of copying other vendors.
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I mean just saying kies is probably not doing their own design and manufacturing of the wifi adapter. And i assume you arent either? Not saying anyone is using a cheap china product/knockoff/whatever, its common practice to rebrand something from a universal supplier, when the product is functionally identical. |
I think of China and some other Asian countries like the wild wild west. The same rules don't apply there. Some companies are above board in their business practices, but many are not. It's not easy to tell who is who, and things can suddenly change.
It seems like relationships are built upon who can make who money without there being any real solid ethical, moral or legal foundation like we are used to. If things go bad, there's not much recourse.
I know a company, not mentioned here, who was doing most of their manufacturing in the US. They were very busy so they decided to outsource one product to a new partner in China who had several high recommendations. So they signed a contract and turned over their manufacturing specs, etc. It was an exclusive arrangement.
They thought it was going well until one of their employees discovered that the Chinese company was also supplying it under another brand name in another world market. They thought that they wouldn't get caught. And even if they did the US company had no real recourse other than to stop doing business with them.
The big US company that my father worked for decades ago had partnered with some Japanese companies. Japan was much more tied in with patent laws and US business practices. They weren't as blatant as Chinese companies today. My father was in charge of manufacturing and warned upper management not to be so open in discussions and not to do tours of their plants. Within 18-24 months the Japanese company introduced a new improved product and filed US patents for it. All totally legal.
They had taken a decades worth of product and manufacturing development knowledge that they had essentially been given for free in a lot of US meetings and factory tours. They used it as a starting basis to create a competing product. Everything that they did was technically legal, the way that they had done it, but not moral or ethical.
The potential profits of doing business with Chinese companies are huge. And US companies know that if they don't take the extra risk, then some competitor might.