News

Samsung's Loose Lips Lost iPod Deal

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 10:00 AM - by

Samsung's announcement that it would be providing chips for upcoming iPod models instead of SigmaTel and PortalPlayer apparently upset Apple. As "punishment" for making the announcement, Apple decided to cancel its deal with Samsung and continue to use chips from SigmaTel, according to an EE Times report.

Currently, SigmaTel provides the media processor chip used in the iPod shuffle, and processors from PortalPlayer in the nano product line. Reports now say that SigmaTel will continue to provide chips for upcoming shuffle models, and Samsung will provide the processor for new nano models.

Westbush Morgan Securities analyst, Craig Berger commented "We have increased confidence that SigmaTel will continue supplying the MP3 processor into the Apple Shuffle in [the second half of 2006], after a Samsung executive commented publicly that Samsung supplanted PortalPlayer in the next-generation iPod Nano."

The news comes at a good time for SigmaTel since it is losing market share to China's Action Semiconductor in the low-end MP3 player arena. Analysts expect Apple to ship about 7.4 million shuffles this year.

Mr. Berger stated "We believe that SigmaTel is likely to be the resulting beneficiary of the Samsung executive's gaffe."

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 971 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed May 31, 2006 10:58 am

Maybe Sam shouldn't have sung about this so soon. It was not so nyce . If Apple needs a bug supplier, they could take their business to shiba. Matsu shît a brick when he heard this bad news. The tough part of all this is that reviewers will pan a sonic-only version of the ipod now, expecting every new ipod to have video. If these people hadn't all thought the Mac was just a toy, ota options woulda been available.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 31, 2006 11:10 am

Bosco--

Man, it took a moment to get what you were doing, but dang! You nailed it.

Are you the same Bosco who trained a certain Cyberdog?

DocRoss

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 971 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed May 31, 2006 11:41 am

Quote
Guest wrote:
Are you the same Bosco who trained a certain Cyberdog?

Oh that's funny, and honestly, I'd never thought of the connection! No, I am not the Bosco guy from Cyberdog time. That was Dean from Florida... But I was a prominent OpenDoc guy in the day. Since then, I got a dog, well two, but the first was already named "Bosco" at the pound, and he has inspired my creations since.

-Brad

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Brutno said:

member since 28 Aug 2002 with 194 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed May 31, 2006 3:23 pm

"Punishment" ? I hope that by adding quotes to the word your are not indicating you feel this is a petty response by Apple. This happens every day in business. Companies other than Apple do it, but Apple's reputation for this is perhaps best-known. Anyone partnering with Apple should be aware of this and of the consequences for opening your mouth to brag.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed May 31, 2006 3:35 pm

What are you guys on or is my language chip failing again

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