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Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi With the right R&D, perfect attention to detail, detailed schematics, external drawings, dimensions and specifications colours dyes paints, processes, materials specified, with tolerances (and many more things, of course), |
This means a significant part of intellectual property or trade secrets are at risk. It is like mini training. And I believe Chinese are good at IP theft. One person told me that he witnessed an interview of a candidate in China. He was surprised towards the end to see that the chap had brought some information about a few critical things from his previous employer... and asked if it could be of any use. It seems it is an unofficial norm there!

I am (of course) not saying that it is any good or something to be inspired from or encouraged, but just stating my views, the way I know it.
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Or for that matter, did you know that half the stuff well-marketed by Tata, Godrej, Nicholas-Piramal and many other reputable houses is not actually made by them? Pick up a bar of your favourite soap, or talc, or toothpaste or washing powder and read. Chances are they were made in a smaller factory in India, under the supervision of Godrej.
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Yes, I did have some idea about it. Many time only brand names sell. Especially when competition is tough and many products are nearby in terms of quality, to the extent that an average mass customer would not notice the difference or would not bother about it. In such cases I buy some name that sounds heard of, may be through TV, even though those ads are invariably almost silly. No wonder ads for such things are many times centered around kids, because they know most of the people would have no problem buying whatever their kid feels like.
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Would you say that all Apple products benefit from the "legacy" image? I am sure you wouldn't.
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You are right, I won't call it legacy effect. I call it a big marketing success, much like Intel, Microsoft.
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If China were capable of designing and producing the iPhone, they would have made it long before Apple and much cheaper too.
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Agree, but I believe that they CAN do it as of now.
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What you're paying for, is Steve Jobs' brains. Not a Chinese factories diligence in making it exactly to Apple specifications.
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If I feel like somebody is offering me an ipod made to Apple's specifications but at half the price and at expense of Apple's logo, I wouldn't mind

Most of the people using cheapo cell phones or any other gadgets can't even imagine how sophisticated the technology they are using is. They only bother about how much is its cost, and how much will there monthly bill be. They don't pay for the inventors of electricity, ICs or radio waves.
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It is not the first example, but the SECOND example of chinese factories that are wiping away the stigma of "Made in China" rapidly.
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I have seen some examples in the first category as well. I have been using a solar water heater which has Chinese made ETCs (Evacuated Tube collectors) but everything is assembled locally in Bangalore and I am impressed with their performance/reliability. Another example- many years back one of my friend wanted to buy a cheapo cassette player, so we went to a place well known for Chinese items. He bought a "system" for Rs. 350/- relying on my gut feeling that it seemed to be well made. He was concerned about the most likely problem of cassette players- tape mechanism going kaput, especially for such a cheapo. But actually it served him for quite a long time without any problems. We used to call it .35K music system out of fun.
I seriously think that the "China" part is downplayed by companies due to obvious reason of bad reputation. I wouldn't be surprised if many have sold/still selling the stuff without even passing on the cost benefit to customers. Now that it is becoming more like an open secret, they are promoting this -designed or engineered in "where you would like it to be", but made in China with greatest supervision- philosophy.
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Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi What you are paying for is those few hundred people, that are designing the product, the software in the product, the hyper-brained engineers that are planning and testing this product, the research that goes into it and much more.
You are not paying for the few thousand that follow a strict regime (wrt manufacture) in a factory, that happens to be in China. |
A few important things which constitute "much more"- first of all brand name, then all the expenditure on advertisement, marketing force/events/shows/parties, distribution and retailing margins (which unfairly scale according to the base cost, but it should scale as per size/weight just like shipping, if you ask me

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Right from finance to an HR department, handled directly by the Government themselves!!
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Wow! Didn't know this. I see B&T's company getting shifted to PRC
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Besides, I remember paying 30 grand for a really stupid Ericsson phone, 10 years ago, (When 30K was worth a LOT more than it is today, there were no call centres and the average educated kid earned 1500-3000 rupees) that you could only make calls on and use for self-defense by throwing it at your attacker.
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I too had bought an Alcatel phone for 12 grands around the same time. It was the sleekest model available here then. It used to make many heads turn while making or receiving calls. It had a unique feature of storing 2 address books into phones own memory apart from SIM and had Li ion battery. Slowly people started calling it a big phone, then a cordless (landline) phone, then a hammer. Finally people couldn't resist laughing at it and I had to replace it out of SHAME
