Question

compare the following companies in terms of both horizontal boundary and vertical boundary (i) taiwan's htc (ii) america's apple and (iii)korea's samsung

Answer 1

• Htc

High Tech Computer Corporation, literally Hongda International Electronics Co., Ltd. trading as HTC is a Taiwanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Xindian District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Founded in 1997, HTC began as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer, designing and manufacturing laptop computers.

After initially making smartphones based mostly on Windows Mobile, HTC became a co-founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of handset manufacturers and mobile network operators dedicated to the development of the Android mobile operating system. The HTC Dream (marketed by T-Mobile in many countries as the T-Mobile G1) was the first phone on the market to run Android.

Although initially successful as a smartphone vendor, competition from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics, among others, diluted its market share, which reached just 7.2% by April 2015, and the company has experienced consecutive net losses. In 2016, HTC began to diversify its business beyond smartphones, having partnered with Valve to produce a virtual reality platform known as HTC Vive. After having collaborated with Google on its Pixel smartphone, HTC sold roughly half of its design and research talent, as well as non-exclusive rights to smartphone-related intellectual property, to Google in 2017 for US$1.1 billion.

• Litigation

In March 2010, Apple Inc. filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission claiming infringement of 20 of its patents covering aspects of the iPhone user interface and hardware. HTC disagreed with Apple's actions and reiterated its commitment to creating innovative smartphones. HTC also filed a complaint against Apple for infringing on five of its patents and sought to ban the import of Apple products into the US from manufacturing facilities in Asia. Apple expanded its original complaint by adding two more patents.

On 10 November 2012, Apple and HTC reached a 10-year license-agreement covering current and future patents held by the two companies. The terms of the agreement remain confidential Previously, Apple ignored HTC's long held rights over the trade name Touch by calling its new iPod range the same. In February 2013, HTC settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concerning lax security on more than 18 million smartphones and tablets it had shipped to customers and agreed to security patches.

• Corporate information

HTC's chairwoman and acting CEO is Cher Wang who is the daughter of the late Wang Yung-ching, founder of the plastics and petrochemicals conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group. Peter Chou serves as head of the HTC Future Development Lab, and HT Cho as Director of the Board and Chairman of HTC Foundation. HTC's CFO is Hui-Ming Cheng. In addition to being chair of HTC, Cher Wang is also acting chair of VIA Technologies. HTC's main divisions, including the IA (Information Appliance) engineering division and the WM (Wireless Mobile) engineering division, are ISO 9001/ISO 14001-qualified facilities.

The company's growth has accelerated dramatically[clarification needed] since being chosen by Microsoft as a hardware platform development partner for the Windows Mobile operating system (based on Windows CE)[citation needed]. HTC also works with Google to build mobile phones running Google's Android mobile OS such as the Nexus One.HTC's sales revenue totalled $2.2 billion for 2005, a 102% increase from the prior year. In 2005 it was listed as the fastest-growing tech company in BusinessWeeks Info Tech 100.

HTC invested strongly in research and development, which accounts for a quarter of its employees. The company's North American headquarters are located in Bellevue, Washington.HTC runs a software design office in Seattle (near its North American headquarters) where it designs its own interface for its phones. In 2011, HTC also opened a research and development office in Durham, North Carolina, a location the company chose over Seattle and Atlanta, to focus on multiple areas of wireless technology.

On 17 February 2010, Fast Company ranked HTC as the 31st most innovative company in the world. On 27 May 2011, in response to customer feedback, HTC announced that they will no longer lock the bootloaders on their Android based phones.

Comparison of HTC devices

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries. HTC is the original design manufacturer for many Android and Windows Phone-based smartphones and PDAs. Brands that market or previously marketed HTC-manufactured products include Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, HP/Compaq, i-mate, Krome, O2, Palm, Sharp Corporation, and UTStarcom. HTC also manufactures ultra-mobile PCs, and is also the manufacturer of the Nexus One and Nexus 9, a smartphone and tablet designed and branded by Google, respectively.

• Americas apple

Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs, develops and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. It is considered one of the Big Tech technology companies, alongside Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.

The company's hardware products include the iPhone smartphone, the iPad tablet computer, the Mac personal computer, the iPod portable media player, the Apple Watch smartwatch, the Apple TV digital media player, the AirPods wireless earbuds and the HomePod smart speaker. Apple's software includes macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tv OS operating systems, the iTunes media player, the Safari web browser, the Shazam music identifier and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites, as well as professional applications like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Xcode. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store, Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iMessage, and iCloud. Other services include Apple Store, Genius Bar, AppleCare, Apple Pay, Apple Pay Cash, and Apple Card.

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer, though Wayne sold his share back within 12 days. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc., in January 1977, and sales of its computers, including the Apple II, grew quickly. Within a few years, Jobs and Wozniak had hired a staff of computer designers and had a production line. Apple went public in 1980 to instant financial success. Over the next few years, Apple shipped new computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, such as the original Macintosh in 1984, and Apple's marketing advertisements for its products received widespread critical acclaim. However, the high price of its products and limited application library caused problems, as did power struggles between executives. In 1985, Wozniak departed Apple amicably and remained an honorary employee,while Jobs and others resigned to found NeXT.

As the market for personal computers expanded and evolved through the 1990s, Apple lost market share to the lower-priced duopoly of Microsoft Windows on Intel PC clones. The board recruited CEO Gil Amelio to what would be a 500-day charge for him to rehabilitate the financially troubled company—reshaping it with layoffs, executive restructuring, and product focus. In 1997, he led Apple to buy NeXT, solving the desperately failed operating system strategy and bringing Jobs back. Jobs regained leadership status, becoming CEO in 2000. Apple swiftly returned to profitability under the revitalizing Think different campaign, as he rebuilt Apple's status by launching the iMac in 1998, opening the retail chain of Apple Stores in 2001, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the software portfolio. In January 2007, Jobs renamed the company Apple Inc., reflecting its shifted focus toward consumer electronics, and launched the iPhone to great critical acclaim and financial success. In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO due to health complications, and Tim Cook became the new CEO. Two months later, Jobs died, marking the end of an era for the company. In June 2019, Jony Ive, Apple's CDO, left the company to start his own firm, but stated he would work with Apple as its primary client.

Apple's worldwide annual revenue totaled $274.5 billion for the 2020 fiscal year. Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most valuable companies. It is also the world's third-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung and Huawei. In August 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion and just two years later in August 2020 became the first $2 trillion U.S. company.The company employs 137,000 full-time employees and maintains 510 retail stores in 25 countries as of 2020. It operates the iTunes Store, which is the world's largest music retailer. As of January 2020, more than 1.5 billion Apple products are actively in use worldwide. The company also has a high level of brand loyalty and is ranked as the world's most valuable brand. However, Apple receives significant criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors, its environmental practices and unethical business practices, including anti-competitive behavior, as well as the origins of source materials.

Products

iMac: Consumer all-in-one desktop computer, introduced in 1998.
Mac Mini: Consumer sub-desktop computer, introduced in 2005.
MacBook Pro: Professional notebook, introduced in 2006.
Mac Pro: Workstation desktop computer, introduced in 2006.
MacBook Air: Consumer ultra-thin, ultra-portable notebook, introduced in 2008.
Apple sells a variety of computer accessories for Macs, including Thunderbolt Display, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard, the AirPort wireless networking products, and Time Capsule.

iPod

On October 23, 2001, Apple introduced the iPod digital music player. Several updated models have since been introduced, and the iPod brand is now the market leader in portable music players by a significant margin. More than 390 million units have shipped as of September 2015.Apple has partnered with Nike to offer the Nike+iPod Sports Kit, enabling runners to synchronize and monitor their runs with iTunes and the Nike+ website.

In late July 2017, Apple discontinued its iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle models, leaving only the iPod Touch available for purchase.

iPhone

At the Macworld Conference & Expo in January 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the long-anticipated iPhone, a convergence of an Internet-enabled smartphone and iPod. The first-generation iPhone was released on June 29, 2007, for $499 (4 GB) and $599 (8 GB) with an AT&T contract. On February 5, 2008, it was updated to have 16 GB of memory, in addition to the 8 GB and 4 GB models. It combined a 2.5G quad band GSM and EDGE cellular phone with features found in handheld devices, running a scaled-down version of OS X (dubbed iPhone OS after the launch and later renamed to iOS), with various Mac OS X applications such as Safari and Mail. It also includes web-based and Dashboard apps such as Google Maps and Weather. The iPhone features a 3.5-inch (89 mm) touchscreen display, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi (both "b" and "g").

A second version, the iPhone 3G, was released on July 11, 2008, with a reduced price of $199 for the 8 GB model and $299 for the 16 GB model.This version added support for 3G networking and assisted GPS navigation. The flat silver back and large antenna square of the original model were eliminated in favor of a glossy, curved black or white back. Software capabilities were improved with the release of the App Store, which provided iPhone-compatible applications to download. On April 24, 2009, the App Store surpassed one billion downloads. On June 8, 2009, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS. It provided an incremental update to the device, including faster internal components, support for faster 3G speeds, video recording capability, and voice control.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 7, 2010, Apple announced the redesigned iPhone 4. It featured a 960 × 640 display, the Apple A4 processor, a gyroscope for enhanced gaming, a 5MP camera with LED flash, front-facing VGA camera and FaceTime video calling. Shortly after its release, reception issues were discovered by consumers, due to the stainless steel band around the edge of the device, which also serves as the phone's cellular signal and Wi-Fi antenna. The issue was corrected by a "Bumper Case" distributed by Apple for free to all owners for a few months. In June 2011, Apple overtook Nokia to become the world's biggest smartphone maker by volume. On October 4, 2011, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, which was first released on October 14, 2011. It features the Apple A5 processor and Siri voice assistant technology, the latter of which Apple had acquired in 2010 from SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center. It also features an updated 8MP camera with new optics. Apple began a new accessibility feature, Made for iPhone Hearing Aids with the iPhone 4S. Made for iPhone Hearing Aids feature Live Listen, it can help the user hear a conversation in a noisy room or hear someone speaking across the room. Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S phones in the first three days of availability.

On September 12, 2012, Apple introduced the iPhone 5. It has a 4-inch display, 4G LTE connectivity, and the upgraded Apple A6 chip, among several other improvements. Two million iPhones were sold in the first twenty-four hours of pre-ordering and over five million handsets were sold in the first three days of its launch. Upon the launch of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, Apple set a new record for first-weekend smartphone sales by selling over nine million devices in the first three days of its launch. The release of the iPhone 5S and 5C is the first time that Apple simultaneously launched two models.

A patent filed in July 2013 revealed the development of a new iPhone battery system that uses location data in combination with data on the user's habits to moderate the handsets' power settings accordingly. Apple is working towards a power management system that will provide features such as the ability of the iPhone to estimate the length of time a user will be away from a power source to modify energy usage and a detection function that adjusts the charging rate to best suit the type of power source that is being used.

In a March 2014 interview, Apple designer Jonathan Ive used the iPhone as an example of Apple's ethos of creating high-quality, life-changing products. He explained that the phones are comparatively expensive due to the intensive effort that is used to make them We don't take so long and make the way we make for fiscal reasons ... Quite the reverse. The body is made from a single piece of machined aluminum... The whole thing is polished first to a mirror finish and then is very finely textured, except for the Apple logo. The chamfers [smoothed-off edges] are cut with diamond-tipped cutters. The cutters don't usually last very long, so we had to figure out a way of mass-manufacturing long-lasting ones. The camera cover is sapphire crystal. Look at the details around the SIM-card slot. It's extraordinary!

On September 9, 2014, Apple introduced the iPhone 6, alongside the iPhone 6 Plus that both have screen sizes over 4-inches. One year later, Apple introduced the iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S Plus, which introduced a new technology called 3D Touch, including an increase of the rear camera to 12 MP, and the FaceTime camera to 5 MP. On March 21, 2016, Apple introduced the first-generation iPhone SE that has a 4-inch screen size last used with the 5S and has nearly the same internal hardware as the 6S. In July 2016, Apple announced that one billion iPhones had been sold. On September 7, 2016, Apple introduced the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, which feature improved system and graphics performance, add water resistance, a new rear dual-camera system on the 7 Plus model, and, controversially, remove the 3.5 mm headphone jack.

• Samsung

Samsung, South Korean company that is one of the world’s largest producers of electronic devices. Samsung specializes in the production of a wide variety of consumer and industry electronics, including appliances, digital media devices, semiconductors, memory chips, and integrated systems. It has become one of the most-recognizable names in technology and produces about a fifth of South Korea’s total exports.

Samsung was founded as a grocery trading store on March 1, 1938, by Lee Byung-Chull. He started his business in Taegu, Korea, trading noodles and other goods produced in and around the city and exporting them to China and its provinces. After the Korean War, Lee expanded his business into textiles and opened the largest woolen mill in Korea. He focused heavily on industrialization with the goal of helping his country redevelop itself after the war. During that period his business benefited from the new protectionist policies adopted by the Korean government, whose aim was to help large domestic conglomerates (chaebol) by shielding them from competition and providing them easy financing.

During the 1970s the company expanded its textile-manufacturing processes to cover the full line of production—from raw materials all the way to the end product—to better compete in the textile industry. New subsidiaries such as Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung Shipbuilding, and Samsung Precision Company (Samsung Techwin) were established. Also, during the same period, the company started to invest in the heavy, chemical, and petrochemical industries, providing the company a promising growth path.

Samsung first entered the electronics industry in 1969 with several electronics-focused divisions—their first products were black-and-white televisions. During the 1970s the company began to export home electronics products overseas. At that time Samsung was already a major manufacturer in Korea, and it had acquired a 50 percent stake in Korea Semiconductor.

The late 1970s and early ’80s witnessed the rapid expansion of Samsung’s technology businesses. Separate semiconductor and electronics branches were established, and in 1978 an aerospace division was created. Samsung Data Systems (now Samsung SDS) was established in 1985 to serve businesses’ growing need for systems development. That helped Samsung quickly become a leader in information technology services. Samsung also created two research and development institutes that broadened the company’s technology line into electronics, semiconductors, high-polymer chemicals, genetic engineering tools, telecommunications, aerospace, and nanotechnology.

In the 1990s Samsung continued its expansion into the global electronics markets. Despite its success those years also brought about corporate scandals that afflicted the company, including multiple bribery cases and patent-infringement suits. Nevertheless, the company continued to make advancements on the technology and product-quality fronts, with a number of its technology products—ranging from semiconductors to computer-monitor and LCD screens—climbing into top-five positions in global market share.

The 2000s witnessed the birth of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone series, which quickly not only became the company’s most-praised product but also frequently topped annual lists of the best-selling smartphones in the world. Since 2006, the company has been the top-selling global manufacturer of televisions. Beginning in 2010, the Galaxy series expanded to tablet computers with the introduction of the Galaxy Tab.

Smartphone, also spelled smart phone, mobile telephone with a display screen (typically a liquid crystal display, or LCD), built-in personal information management programs (such as an electronic calendar and address book) typically found in a personal digital assistant (PDA), and an operating system (OS) that allows other computer software to be installed for Web browsing, e-mail, music, video, and other applications. A smartphone may be thought of as a handheld computer integrated within a mobile telephone. The first smartphone was designed by IBM and sold by BellSouth (formerly part of the AT&T Corporation) in 1993. It included a touchscreen interface for accessing its calendar, address book, calculator, and other functions. As the market matured and solid-state computer memory and integrated circuits became less expensive over the following decade, smartphones became more computer-like, and more more-advanced services, such as Internet access, became possible. Advanced services became ubiquitous with the introduction of the so-called third-generation (3G) mobile phone networks in 2001. Before 3G, most mobile phones could send and receive data at a rate sufficient for telephone calls and text messages. Using 3G, communication takes place at bit-rates high enough for sending and receiving photographs, video clips, music files, e-mails, and more. Most smartphone manufacturers license an operating system, such as Microsoft Corporation’s Windows Mobile OS, Symbian OS, Google’s Android OS, or Palm OS. Research in Motion’s BlackBerry and Apple Inc.’s iPhone have their own proprietary systems.

Smartphones contain either a keyboard integrated with the telephone number pad or a standard “QWERTY” keyboard for text messaging, e-mailing, and using Web browsers. “Virtual” keyboards can be integrated into a touch-screen design. Smartphones often have a built-in camera for recording and transmitting photographs and short videos. In addition, many smartphones can access Wi-Fi “hot spots” so that users can access VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) rather than pay cellular telephone transmission fees. The growing capabilities of handheld devices and transmission protocols have enabled a growing number of inventive and fanciful applications—for instance, “augmented reality,” in which a smartphone’s global positioning system (GPS) location chip can be used to overlay the phone’s camera view of a street scene with local tidbits of information, such as the identity of stores, points of interest, or real estate listings.

Lee Kun Hee, (born January 9, 1942, Ŭiryŏng, South Kyŏngsang province, Korea [now in South Korea]—died October 25, 2020, Seoul, South Korea), South Korean businessman who was chairman (1987–2008; 2010–20) of the conglomerate Samsung Group and chairman of its flagship company, Samsung Electronics (2010–20). Lee was the youngest son of Lee Byung-Chull, who founded Samsung in 1938. He majored in economics at Waseda University, Tokyo, and earned a master of business administration degree at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. An active sportsman, Lee spent his leisure time riding horses, racing sports cars on a private track, and raising dogs. In addition, he was president of the Korean Amateur Wrestling Association and was involved with a professional baseball team and amateur athletics.

In 1968 Lee joined Samsung, which was involved in electronics, machinery, chemicals, and financial services. He served as the quiet understudy of his father, who exercised absolute control over the conglomerate and decided against making two older sons his successors. After his father’s death in 1987, Lee became chairman of Samsung but left management to a corporate staff. In June 1993, however, Lee launched a dramatic revolution from the top to make Samsung—the largest Asian conglomerate outside Japan—internationally competitive. Declaring that Samsung was “second rate” by global standards, he called on each employee “to change everything but your family.” Lee attributed the shortcomings of Samsung to basic weaknesses in Korean society, including an educational system that stressed learning by rote and an authoritarian style of leadership. He ordered radical reforms. Under what Lee termed a “new management” concept, Samsung insisted that subordinates point out errors to their bosses. It also stressed quality of products over quantity, promoted women to the ranks of senior executives, and discouraged bureaucratic practices. Having emerged from a shy figurehead to an assertive chief executive, Lee pushed Samsung into many new activities, such as automobile manufacturing. Bolstered by a surge of investment, he aimed to make 20 percent of Samsung’s products outside South Korea by the year 2000. Consequently, he built an electronics manufacturing complex in Wynyard, England, and semiconductor plants in both Austin, Texas, and Suzhou, China. He also acquired such companies as the U.S. computer maker AST Research, Rollei Camera in Germany, and Lux, a Japanese manufacturer of audio products. By 1996 Samsung Electronics ranked as the world’s leading exporter of memory chips, and the entire group’s revenues in 1995 totaled $87 billion, equivalent to about 19 percent of South Korea’s gross domestic product.

In 1996 Lee was also among 11 prominent South Korean businessmen drawn into a political scandal over corporate contributions to former president Roh Tae Woo. A court ruled that such payments—though customary in South Korea—were bribes. In August 1996 Lee was sentenced to two years in prison, but the punishment was suspended for three years. He was later pardoned by Pres. Kim Young Sam. In the late 1990s, Lee guided Samsung safely through the Asian financial crisis, and at the start of the 21st century it was one of the largest conglomerates in the world. In April 2008, however, Lee was indicted on charges of breach of trust and tax evasion, and shortly thereafter he resigned as chairman of Samsung. In July he was convicted of tax evasion, and he was subsequently fined approximately $80 million and sentenced to three years suspended jail time. Lee was pardoned by the South Korean government in December 2009. In March 2010 Samsung Group executives made Lee the head of Samsung Electronics, the conglomerate’s largest division. Later that year he returned as chairman of the Samsung Group. However, in 2014 he suffered a heart attack that left him incapacitated. Although Lee retained his posts, his son, Lee Jae-Yong, became the de facto leader of the Samsung Group. In 2018 it was announced that the elder Lee was again being investigated for tax evasion.