Monday, January 09, 2006

Samsung to take on Apple with hybrid devices

Samsung has come out of the blocks in 2006 saying that they plan to hit Apple hard. And they are throwing an ad campaign worth tens of millions of dollars to try and become the leading digital music player company by end 2007. That's one tall order and highly unlikely to be met.

But, Sanmsung believe they have a secret weapon: hybrid devices. So they are launching music players that also have satellite radio. Other products will combine a portable TV with a music player.

Samsung will also try to jumpstart the portable video market this year. Some portable video devices will be primarily video players, while others will be phones or MP3 players first.

They believe that video will be this years killer application. And they may well be right. So, added to Apples long list of company's coming after them (see sister channel BigTrends today for the iPod versus mobile phones), is Samsung, who is worth over $100bn. Steve Jobs had better have a lot under his sleeve for tomorrow at Macworld.

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