Nikon India today announced the new Nikon 1 imaging system. This series includes two models- the Nikon 1 J1 and the Nikon 1 V1. The Nikon 1 J1 is an advanced camera with interchangeable that lets user capture pictures and High Definition (HD) movies. The camera features an electronic viewfinder (EVF), 4 interchangeable lenses, continuous shooting and auto-focus system.
The name itself was inspired by the idea of developing a completely new camera system that would be a leader in the digital age by starting from "0", and giving birth to "1".
Nikon 1 J1 features new hybrid Autofocus (AF), Motion Snapshot mode, Smart Photo Selector which automatically capture image and is capable of recording recording Full HD 1080p movies simultaneously.
The Nikon 1 V1 has a magnesium alloy body and features 1.4 million dot high resolution EVF. The V1 also features a microphone and a Multi-Accessory Port for attaching SB-N5 compact speed light, or the GP-N100 GPS module.
The Nikon 1 J1 with 10-30mm VR kit lens will be available at a price of Rs. 29, 950, while the Nikon 1 V1 with 10-30mm VR kit will be available at Rs 43, 950.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Oracle investor sues co's Board
An Oracle Corp investor sued the company and members of its board of directors on Thursday for allegedly trying to "stonewall" a whistleblower lawsuit that ultimately resulted in a $200 million settlement.
The lawsuit filed by investor Jordan Weinrib in Delaware state court said the defendants, including Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison and other past and present members of the company's board of directors, breached their duty to shareholders by engaging in prolonged litigation over the whistleblower's allegations, which the defendants allegedly knew to be true.
"The board forced the government to expend additional resources litigating the action when the board knew the company was in a significant liability position and that additional litigation would certainly raise the ultimate price of settlement," Weinrib said in the complaint.
The settlement in question was the result of a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2007 by Oracle's former senior director of contract services, Paul Frascella, who accused the company of violating price-reduction clauses in federal contracts covering $775 million in goods, extending discounts to commercial clients without doing the same for government buyers.
The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in the lawsuit in 2010. In 2011, Oracle paid more than $200 million to settle the lawsuit, including interest and payments for the whistleblower, the largest of its kind under the federal False Claims Act.
"Despite substantial evidence of wrongdoing, Oracle's board of directors did not admit that these acts had occurred, enact remedial measures and negotiate a resolution that involved a small payment," Weinrib said in the complaint. Instead, by litigating the case, Oracle drove up the ultimate settlement price, harming taxpayers and shareholders alike, Weinrib said.
Weinrib is seeking an unspecified amount in damages on behalf of shareholders. A spokesman for Oracle did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
The lawsuit filed by investor Jordan Weinrib in Delaware state court said the defendants, including Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison and other past and present members of the company's board of directors, breached their duty to shareholders by engaging in prolonged litigation over the whistleblower's allegations, which the defendants allegedly knew to be true.
"The board forced the government to expend additional resources litigating the action when the board knew the company was in a significant liability position and that additional litigation would certainly raise the ultimate price of settlement," Weinrib said in the complaint.
The settlement in question was the result of a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2007 by Oracle's former senior director of contract services, Paul Frascella, who accused the company of violating price-reduction clauses in federal contracts covering $775 million in goods, extending discounts to commercial clients without doing the same for government buyers.
The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in the lawsuit in 2010. In 2011, Oracle paid more than $200 million to settle the lawsuit, including interest and payments for the whistleblower, the largest of its kind under the federal False Claims Act.
"Despite substantial evidence of wrongdoing, Oracle's board of directors did not admit that these acts had occurred, enact remedial measures and negotiate a resolution that involved a small payment," Weinrib said in the complaint. Instead, by litigating the case, Oracle drove up the ultimate settlement price, harming taxpayers and shareholders alike, Weinrib said.
Weinrib is seeking an unspecified amount in damages on behalf of shareholders. A spokesman for Oracle did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
T-Mobile cutting 1,900 call centre jobs
Cellphone carrier T-Mobile USA Inc said Thursday that it is cutting 1,900 jobs nationwide as it consolidates its call centers in an effort to reduce costs and remain competitive.
Seven of its 24 call centers will be closed by the end of June. About 3,300 people work at the centers slated to be shuttered, but T-Mobile said it plans to hire up to 1,400 people at the remaining 17 centers.
The call centers slated for closure are in Allentown, Pa.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Frisco, Texas; Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kansas; Thornton, Colo. and Redmond, Ore.
The company said that workers whose jobs are eliminated will have a chance to transfer to the remaining call centres.
"These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth," Philipp Humm, T-Mobile CEO and president said in a statement.
T-Mobile, based in Bellevue, Washington, is the smallest of the four national carriers and is dealing with steep subscriber loses, resulting in fewer calls to its call centers.
In last year's fourth quarter, T-Mobile lost a net 802,000 subscribers on contract-based plans, which are the most lucrative. It is the only national carrier not offering the iPhone, the popular Apple Inc. device now carried by all three of the company's larger rivals.
In addition, a $39 billion bid by AT&T Corp to take over T-Mobile was thwarted last year by antitrust concerns.
T-Mobile said it will restructure other parts of its business during the second quarter. That includes plans announced previously to modernize its network, add new technology and hire more sales staff. The company employs about 36,000 people.
It announced in February that it will revamp its wireless data network this year, making it compatible with iPhones and other smartphones.
Seven of its 24 call centers will be closed by the end of June. About 3,300 people work at the centers slated to be shuttered, but T-Mobile said it plans to hire up to 1,400 people at the remaining 17 centers.
The call centers slated for closure are in Allentown, Pa.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Frisco, Texas; Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kansas; Thornton, Colo. and Redmond, Ore.
The company said that workers whose jobs are eliminated will have a chance to transfer to the remaining call centres.
"These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth," Philipp Humm, T-Mobile CEO and president said in a statement.
T-Mobile, based in Bellevue, Washington, is the smallest of the four national carriers and is dealing with steep subscriber loses, resulting in fewer calls to its call centers.
In last year's fourth quarter, T-Mobile lost a net 802,000 subscribers on contract-based plans, which are the most lucrative. It is the only national carrier not offering the iPhone, the popular Apple Inc. device now carried by all three of the company's larger rivals.
In addition, a $39 billion bid by AT&T Corp to take over T-Mobile was thwarted last year by antitrust concerns.
T-Mobile said it will restructure other parts of its business during the second quarter. That includes plans announced previously to modernize its network, add new technology and hire more sales staff. The company employs about 36,000 people.
It announced in February that it will revamp its wireless data network this year, making it compatible with iPhones and other smartphones.
New telecom operators adding users despite uncertainty
New telecom operators, led by Uninor and Sistema Shyam (MTS India), continue to add new subscribers in February notwithstanding the uncertain environment after the Supreme Court judgement cancelling 122 2G licences.
Uninor, a joint venture between Unitech and Norway-based Telenor, registered the maximum growth of 6.04 per cent in additions as it added 2.34 million users in the month. Its total user base was at 41.14 million.
According to the GSM users data released by Cellular Operators of India today, all operators added 8.77 million new users in February to take the country's GSM user base to 656.86 million.
In January, GSM operators had added 8.44 million new users taking the total to 648.08 million.
Another new operator Videocon, which added 0.34 million new subscribers, posted the second highest growth rate of 5.97 per cent in February. The user base of Videocon stood at 6.19 million.
CDMA player MTS India said it added 0.23 million new customers, taking its user base to 15.43 million.
Idea Cellular added maximum number of users at 2.58 million taking its subscriber base to 110.70 million.
However, state-run BSNL failed to add even a single new subscriber for the month. Its user base stood at 93.42 million.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel added 1.82 users as its total subscriber base was at 178.77 million. It had a market share of 27.22 per cent.
Vodafone Essar, with a 22.75 per cent market share, added 0.83 million new subscribers during the month, taking its subscriber base to 149.44 million in February.
Aircel added 0.79 million customers taking its subscriber base to 63.25 million, whereas MTNL added 38,757 new users taking its base to 5.53 million in February.
Both Etisalat and Stel, which have expressed their intentions to exit business after their licenses were cancelled by the Supreme Court, did not add any new user.
Circle-wise, the highest number of additions were in Maharashtra which saw 1 million new users being added in February.
GSM is the leading standard for mobile telephony systems in the world. The other technology platform on which telcos offer services is CDMA, where players such as Tata Teleservices (TTSL), RCom and Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd (SSTL) are the main operators.
TTSL and RCom offer both GSM as well as CDMA services.
Uninor, a joint venture between Unitech and Norway-based Telenor, registered the maximum growth of 6.04 per cent in additions as it added 2.34 million users in the month. Its total user base was at 41.14 million.
According to the GSM users data released by Cellular Operators of India today, all operators added 8.77 million new users in February to take the country's GSM user base to 656.86 million.
In January, GSM operators had added 8.44 million new users taking the total to 648.08 million.
Another new operator Videocon, which added 0.34 million new subscribers, posted the second highest growth rate of 5.97 per cent in February. The user base of Videocon stood at 6.19 million.
CDMA player MTS India said it added 0.23 million new customers, taking its user base to 15.43 million.
Idea Cellular added maximum number of users at 2.58 million taking its subscriber base to 110.70 million.
However, state-run BSNL failed to add even a single new subscriber for the month. Its user base stood at 93.42 million.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel added 1.82 users as its total subscriber base was at 178.77 million. It had a market share of 27.22 per cent.
Vodafone Essar, with a 22.75 per cent market share, added 0.83 million new subscribers during the month, taking its subscriber base to 149.44 million in February.
Aircel added 0.79 million customers taking its subscriber base to 63.25 million, whereas MTNL added 38,757 new users taking its base to 5.53 million in February.
Both Etisalat and Stel, which have expressed their intentions to exit business after their licenses were cancelled by the Supreme Court, did not add any new user.
Circle-wise, the highest number of additions were in Maharashtra which saw 1 million new users being added in February.
GSM is the leading standard for mobile telephony systems in the world. The other technology platform on which telcos offer services is CDMA, where players such as Tata Teleservices (TTSL), RCom and Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd (SSTL) are the main operators.
TTSL and RCom offer both GSM as well as CDMA services.
New Apple iPad in wi-fi trouble?
Apple's new iPad has trouble picking up and holding on to wi-fi signals, say users.
A thread on Apple's official forums has 144 posts from angry users, and has been read by 5,000 people, Daily Mail reported Thursday.
"This is a problem Apple - you need to fix it," says one user.
"The laptop wifi reception is as strong as it gets, but the iPad only registers a weak signal. Anyone else having similar problems? Any suggestions?" Daily Mail quoted one user as saying.
Other Apple launches have been blighted by similar problems, including the original iPad and some models of iBook, the newspaper said.
The news comes as users complain that a hidden "upgrade" to the new machine has meant that many older "Smart Covers" - the magnetic covers used by Apple which turn on the machine automatically when opened - won't work.
The problem is particularly bad with third-party covers made by companies other than Apple, but older official Apple covers also fail to work, the paper added.
Google imagines environment-aware mobile adverts
If you have ever stood in the rain wondering where the nearest umbrella shop is, then the latest Google patent may interest you.
The search giant has secured intellectual rights to a system that would serve ads based on environmental conditions.
Google said forward-looking patents were useful for its portfolio, but it had no current plans to act on it.
But privacy advocates have warned it could set a dangerous precedent.
Spying device?
The patent, first reported by PC World magazine, potentially paves the way for a mobile phone fitted with sensors that would allow it to record data such as temperature, humidity, light, and sound or air composition, which would trigger relevant adverts.
"Advertisements for air conditioners can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures above a first threshold, while advertisements for winter overcoats can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures below a second threshold," explains the patent document.
The patent would allow Google to search offline data as well as online
Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, is not impressed.
"Not content with collecting vast amounts of information from your online activities, it seems Google are looking to start exploiting the offline space as well. Patents like this may never come to fruition, but they force us to ask ourselves: how many aspects of our lives will advertisers try to exploit, and where will it end?
"This is an attempt to turn our devices into personal spying devices, just so a company can try to sell you a coat on a cold day."
Google was keen to put the patent in context.
"We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don't. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications," said a Google spokesman.
'Minority Report'
Patents are the new battlefield for tech firms, and as well as seeking to gain as many device-specific patents as possible, many are also lodging forward-thinking ideas to future-proof themselves.
Andrew Alton, a patent lawyer with law firm Urquhart-Dykes and Lord, said it was a logical extension of Google's context advertising.
"There are elements of things from the film Minority Report happening in the real world but this is just an extension of context-based advertising. It is what Google does anyway - combining people's past history with search results or searches based on GPS location," he said.
He said that such "blue sky patents" were becoming increasingly popular with firms.
"Lodging patents on stuff you are already doing puts you behind the times. To guess what will happen next, to step back and look at the next generation of products that puts you in a dominant position," he said.
"If you spend money on research and development of new products, the costs may be massive but getting licensing rights when someone else invents it is free money for firms," he added.
The search giant has secured intellectual rights to a system that would serve ads based on environmental conditions.
Google said forward-looking patents were useful for its portfolio, but it had no current plans to act on it.
But privacy advocates have warned it could set a dangerous precedent.
Spying device?
The patent, first reported by PC World magazine, potentially paves the way for a mobile phone fitted with sensors that would allow it to record data such as temperature, humidity, light, and sound or air composition, which would trigger relevant adverts.
"Advertisements for air conditioners can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures above a first threshold, while advertisements for winter overcoats can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures below a second threshold," explains the patent document.
The patent would allow Google to search offline data as well as online
Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, is not impressed.
"Not content with collecting vast amounts of information from your online activities, it seems Google are looking to start exploiting the offline space as well. Patents like this may never come to fruition, but they force us to ask ourselves: how many aspects of our lives will advertisers try to exploit, and where will it end?
"This is an attempt to turn our devices into personal spying devices, just so a company can try to sell you a coat on a cold day."
Google was keen to put the patent in context.
"We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don't. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications," said a Google spokesman.
'Minority Report'
Patents are the new battlefield for tech firms, and as well as seeking to gain as many device-specific patents as possible, many are also lodging forward-thinking ideas to future-proof themselves.
Andrew Alton, a patent lawyer with law firm Urquhart-Dykes and Lord, said it was a logical extension of Google's context advertising.
"There are elements of things from the film Minority Report happening in the real world but this is just an extension of context-based advertising. It is what Google does anyway - combining people's past history with search results or searches based on GPS location," he said.
He said that such "blue sky patents" were becoming increasingly popular with firms.
"Lodging patents on stuff you are already doing puts you behind the times. To guess what will happen next, to step back and look at the next generation of products that puts you in a dominant position," he said.
"If you spend money on research and development of new products, the costs may be massive but getting licensing rights when someone else invents it is free money for firms," he added.
After 6 years, Twitter has 14 crore users
Twitter on Thursday revealed that over 140 million active users make 340 million tweets everyday. The company disclosed the figure in an official blog posted after it completed six years of operations .
"At last check, there are more than 140 million active users and today we see 340 million Tweets a day. That's more than 1 billion every 3 days. Howeverconcisely, it turns out there's plenty to say," the company said. Twitter is a microblogging website where users cannot post a message bigger than 140 characters. However, this limit has been one of the reasons why the service has grown so rapidly as it allows people to post quick and concise thoughts in real time.
In the blog, Twitter revealed that the idea of the website was born when @jack (Jack Dorsey, the company's current executive chairman) sketched out his notion in March 2006. "No one could have predicted the trajectory of this new communication tool (then)... Now it seems that there are as many ways to express yourself in 140 characters as there are people doing it," Twitter said on the blog.
"At last check, there are more than 140 million active users and today we see 340 million Tweets a day. That's more than 1 billion every 3 days. Howeverconcisely, it turns out there's plenty to say," the company said. Twitter is a microblogging website where users cannot post a message bigger than 140 characters. However, this limit has been one of the reasons why the service has grown so rapidly as it allows people to post quick and concise thoughts in real time.
In the blog, Twitter revealed that the idea of the website was born when @jack (Jack Dorsey, the company's current executive chairman) sketched out his notion in March 2006. "No one could have predicted the trajectory of this new communication tool (then)... Now it seems that there are as many ways to express yourself in 140 characters as there are people doing it," Twitter said on the blog.
Samsung seeks killer design to shed "copycat" image
When Samsung Electronics rushed its first smartphone to market in a panicky response to the smash-hit debut of the Apple iPhone, some customers burned the product on the streets or hammered it to bits in public displays of disaffection.
Complaints ranged from dropped calls and a clunky touchscreen to frequent auto rebooting and a dearth of applications.
"It was just awful," said Kim Sang-uk, 27, who bought the Omnia in late-2009 just before starting his first job. "I just wanted to throw it away, but couldn't because I was on a 2-year contract. It was the kind of phone where you'd say 'no', even if someone gave it to you for free."
Samsung Mobile President JK Shin admitted it was a tough time. The company had seen a 1 trillion won profit in its telecom sector in the first quarter of 2010 halved in the following quarter after Apple Inc's latest iPhone took the market by storm.
"We were facing a really serious crisis," Shin said later.
Soap vs. perfume
Yet on the 9th floor of Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seoul housing the mobile division's design center, Lee Minhyouk said he was not feeling the heat. Samsung Mobile's vice president for design and his team were already working on its next smartphone, the Galaxy, and this would be truly a worthy opponent to the iPhone.
Samsung has sold 44 million Galaxy units since its launch in June 2010 on its way to displacing Apple last year as the world's top-selling smartphone maker. Its success evolved from the Omnia, said Lee, who at 40 is the company's youngest senior executive.
"Without Omnia and Samsung's previous models, there would have been no Galaxys. There's a design link among these products," he said in an interview at his office. "They shouldn't be viewed as fragmental design. They share our deep deliberation on technology, colour and design language."
Samsung's chequered entry into the smartphone market is emblematic of the South Korean conglomerate's strengths and weaknesses.
Its strategy has always been to be the "fast executioner", the first in the market with a copycat product when a new opportunity is presented. But it is not known as a great innovator or a company like Apple that can literally create a new market with an iconic product.
To become a truly innovative company, Samsung needs to explore the art, as well as the science, of what it does, critics say.
"Samsung is like a fantastic soap maker," said Christian Lindholm, chief innovation officer of service design consultancy Fjord based in Finland. "Their products get you clean, lathers well. However, they do not know how to make perfumes, an industry where margins are significantly higher. Perfume is an experience. Perfume is meant to seduce, make you attractive and feel good. You love your perfume, but you like your soap."
Designing something people can love is an art, which requires risk taking and is based more on experience than data. "Samsung needs to learn to lead more. They analyze all creativity to death, they lack self confidence," Lindholm said.
"Korea has to leap into the experience industry," she added. "I think they have only five years before they are the new Japan, outmaneuvered by the Chinese who are quickly learning the soap business."
Evolution vs. creation
Lee's office atmosphere and his comments seem to reinforce an image of a company whose culture leans more to evolution than big-bang creationism.
His design sanctum looks much like any other Samsung department, a Dilbert sprawl of desks and cubicles with framed aphorisms from the founding family on the walls: "Be with Customers" and "Create Products that Contribute to Humanity" and also this one: "Challenge the World, Create the Future".
The office may lack the exotic art, exercise balls and creative toys of Silicon Valley decor, but Lee and his team are borrowing some start-up techniques for tapping the design muses.
Lee, who has acquired the moniker of "Midas" for his golden touch with the Galaxy series, h as travelled to Brazil's Iguazu Falls and the ancient city of Cuzco in Peru for inspiration. Samsung sends the design team on such trips across the world to stoke their imaginary fires.
Images or emotions they pick up on these trips can be "naturally expressed in design languages or lines and colours", said Lee, who started out designing cars for Samsung's failed auto joint venture with Renault in the 1990s.
The design process can also be more mundane, he adds.
"Designing is just part of your life. You study, do some research on future trends and experience stuff you haven't done before. All this stuff interacts to create a new design."
If money was the answer to innovation then Samsung Electronics would certainly rank among the best in the world. Samsung spent 10 trillion won on research and development in 2011.
Indeed, the annual Bloomberg BusinessWeek survey of most innovative companies ranks Samsung 11th on its list of top-50 most innovative companies, though it trails local rival LG Electronics in 7th and Sony in 10th.
Part of Samsung's design philosophy is to leverage the conglomerate's ability to manufacture inhouse the components in its products, including microchips and flat screens - an advantage over Apple for instance, which has to outsource most of that.
Samsung readily acknowledges it has yet to attain Apple's innovative spark. And Lee concedes he is no match - yet - for Jonathan Ive, the genius designer behind the distinctive look and feel of Apple's range of phones, tablets and other must-have consumer gadgets.
By most accounts, Ive's success at Apple stemmed from his close personal relationship with Steve Jobs - a classic marriage between gizmo-maker and entrepreneur.
Lee, who said he has never met Ive, has a more corporate relationship with top managers at Samsung. He believes, however, that paradigmatic breakthroughs are a matter of the right product coming at the right time.
"I might not be at (Ive's) level yet, but I believe Samsung will produce such iconic products one day. It's not just effort that makes it possible for a new product to be a massive hit. It also has to be timely, and technology should be ready to make a certain design a reality."
Apple aptitude
That Samsung might eventually wind up with some Apple aptitude has to worry company executives at its Cupertino, California headquarters.
Samsung and Apple are locked in an escalating global patent battle, as they jostle for top position in the booming smartphone and tablet markets. Apple fired the first salvo in April last year, arguing Samsung had "slavishly" copied its iPad and iPhone. Since then both have taken legal action against each other in several countries claiming patent infringements.
Lee takes personal affront at the copycat charge.
"I've made thousands of sketches and hundreds of prototype products (for the Galaxy). Does that mean I was putting on a mock show for so long, pretending to be designing?"
"As a designer, there's an issue of dignity. (The Galaxy) is original from the beginning, and I'm the one who made it. It's a totally different product with a different design language and different technology infused."
And a different marketing approach. While Apple has a simple product line-up for the iPhone and iPad, Samsung has bombarded the market with varieties of the Galaxy, the Wave phone, which uses Samsung's own 'bada' platform, and most recently with a phone-tablet.
Lee sees no harm in this tweaking-rather-than-innovating approach, saying it plays to the company's corporate strengths.
Samsung's vertically integrated structure allows it to use prototype components and new technology developed elsewhere in the company in the design lab. The company has overseas design labs to help uncover consumer trends in the various global markets in which it competes.
Designers have to be integrators, researching user behaviour, discovering what's happening in the market, as well as searching for a unique aesthetic, Lee says.
"As a designer, my job is to blend new functions and technology with aesthetic beauty, as far as possible."
"There are different teams studying new technology trends, working on future design trends and Samsung's own design identity, and they're all regularly exchanging ideas with designers."
Fab-let?
Lee's latest project - a follow-up to the Galaxy model called the Note - is a mini-tablet and phone, with a throwback stylus. Although it looks huge compared with a standard phone, its pinpoint apps and high definition screen should please those using it for video and gaming.
The phone-tablet - or phablet - has sold more than 2 million units since its October launch, and was a crowd pleaser at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.
Lee said the design risk with the note was "breaking a taboo" about keeping handsets small enough to fit easily in your hand.
"But smartphones are more about entertainment. The Note was created by simply breaking that taboo and focusing more on the new functions that smartphones require."
Handsets are now Samsung's biggest earner - bringing in 8.3 trillion won in operating profit last year - and the group's confidence has grown in tandem with its fattening patent book - it registered over 5,000 patents last year alone.
"We were told so many times until the early part of last year that Samsung is not good at software. We're not hearing that as often any more," Samsung Chief Executive Choi Gee-sung said at the CES event in Las Vegas.
Late last month, Choi went further and told reporters at the world's biggest annual mobile show in Barcelona that Samsung would not unveil its new Galaxy model at the Mobile World Congress for fear of rivals copying it.
Yet there's not one software engineer or designer among the 17 Samsung Fellows, Samsung Group's inhouse equivalent of the Nobel prize winners to reward those making a significant contribution to its success. Lee hopes his time will come.
Complaints ranged from dropped calls and a clunky touchscreen to frequent auto rebooting and a dearth of applications.
"It was just awful," said Kim Sang-uk, 27, who bought the Omnia in late-2009 just before starting his first job. "I just wanted to throw it away, but couldn't because I was on a 2-year contract. It was the kind of phone where you'd say 'no', even if someone gave it to you for free."
Samsung Mobile President JK Shin admitted it was a tough time. The company had seen a 1 trillion won profit in its telecom sector in the first quarter of 2010 halved in the following quarter after Apple Inc's latest iPhone took the market by storm.
"We were facing a really serious crisis," Shin said later.
Soap vs. perfume
Yet on the 9th floor of Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seoul housing the mobile division's design center, Lee Minhyouk said he was not feeling the heat. Samsung Mobile's vice president for design and his team were already working on its next smartphone, the Galaxy, and this would be truly a worthy opponent to the iPhone.
Samsung has sold 44 million Galaxy units since its launch in June 2010 on its way to displacing Apple last year as the world's top-selling smartphone maker. Its success evolved from the Omnia, said Lee, who at 40 is the company's youngest senior executive.
"Without Omnia and Samsung's previous models, there would have been no Galaxys. There's a design link among these products," he said in an interview at his office. "They shouldn't be viewed as fragmental design. They share our deep deliberation on technology, colour and design language."
Samsung's chequered entry into the smartphone market is emblematic of the South Korean conglomerate's strengths and weaknesses.
Its strategy has always been to be the "fast executioner", the first in the market with a copycat product when a new opportunity is presented. But it is not known as a great innovator or a company like Apple that can literally create a new market with an iconic product.
To become a truly innovative company, Samsung needs to explore the art, as well as the science, of what it does, critics say.
"Samsung is like a fantastic soap maker," said Christian Lindholm, chief innovation officer of service design consultancy Fjord based in Finland. "Their products get you clean, lathers well. However, they do not know how to make perfumes, an industry where margins are significantly higher. Perfume is an experience. Perfume is meant to seduce, make you attractive and feel good. You love your perfume, but you like your soap."
Designing something people can love is an art, which requires risk taking and is based more on experience than data. "Samsung needs to learn to lead more. They analyze all creativity to death, they lack self confidence," Lindholm said.
"Korea has to leap into the experience industry," she added. "I think they have only five years before they are the new Japan, outmaneuvered by the Chinese who are quickly learning the soap business."
Evolution vs. creation
Lee's office atmosphere and his comments seem to reinforce an image of a company whose culture leans more to evolution than big-bang creationism.
His design sanctum looks much like any other Samsung department, a Dilbert sprawl of desks and cubicles with framed aphorisms from the founding family on the walls: "Be with Customers" and "Create Products that Contribute to Humanity" and also this one: "Challenge the World, Create the Future".
The office may lack the exotic art, exercise balls and creative toys of Silicon Valley decor, but Lee and his team are borrowing some start-up techniques for tapping the design muses.
Lee, who has acquired the moniker of "Midas" for his golden touch with the Galaxy series, h as travelled to Brazil's Iguazu Falls and the ancient city of Cuzco in Peru for inspiration. Samsung sends the design team on such trips across the world to stoke their imaginary fires.
Images or emotions they pick up on these trips can be "naturally expressed in design languages or lines and colours", said Lee, who started out designing cars for Samsung's failed auto joint venture with Renault in the 1990s.
The design process can also be more mundane, he adds.
"Designing is just part of your life. You study, do some research on future trends and experience stuff you haven't done before. All this stuff interacts to create a new design."
If money was the answer to innovation then Samsung Electronics would certainly rank among the best in the world. Samsung spent 10 trillion won on research and development in 2011.
Indeed, the annual Bloomberg BusinessWeek survey of most innovative companies ranks Samsung 11th on its list of top-50 most innovative companies, though it trails local rival LG Electronics in 7th and Sony in 10th.
Part of Samsung's design philosophy is to leverage the conglomerate's ability to manufacture inhouse the components in its products, including microchips and flat screens - an advantage over Apple for instance, which has to outsource most of that.
Samsung readily acknowledges it has yet to attain Apple's innovative spark. And Lee concedes he is no match - yet - for Jonathan Ive, the genius designer behind the distinctive look and feel of Apple's range of phones, tablets and other must-have consumer gadgets.
By most accounts, Ive's success at Apple stemmed from his close personal relationship with Steve Jobs - a classic marriage between gizmo-maker and entrepreneur.
Lee, who said he has never met Ive, has a more corporate relationship with top managers at Samsung. He believes, however, that paradigmatic breakthroughs are a matter of the right product coming at the right time.
"I might not be at (Ive's) level yet, but I believe Samsung will produce such iconic products one day. It's not just effort that makes it possible for a new product to be a massive hit. It also has to be timely, and technology should be ready to make a certain design a reality."
Apple aptitude
That Samsung might eventually wind up with some Apple aptitude has to worry company executives at its Cupertino, California headquarters.
Samsung and Apple are locked in an escalating global patent battle, as they jostle for top position in the booming smartphone and tablet markets. Apple fired the first salvo in April last year, arguing Samsung had "slavishly" copied its iPad and iPhone. Since then both have taken legal action against each other in several countries claiming patent infringements.
Lee takes personal affront at the copycat charge.
"I've made thousands of sketches and hundreds of prototype products (for the Galaxy). Does that mean I was putting on a mock show for so long, pretending to be designing?"
"As a designer, there's an issue of dignity. (The Galaxy) is original from the beginning, and I'm the one who made it. It's a totally different product with a different design language and different technology infused."
And a different marketing approach. While Apple has a simple product line-up for the iPhone and iPad, Samsung has bombarded the market with varieties of the Galaxy, the Wave phone, which uses Samsung's own 'bada' platform, and most recently with a phone-tablet.
Lee sees no harm in this tweaking-rather-than-innovating approach, saying it plays to the company's corporate strengths.
Samsung's vertically integrated structure allows it to use prototype components and new technology developed elsewhere in the company in the design lab. The company has overseas design labs to help uncover consumer trends in the various global markets in which it competes.
Designers have to be integrators, researching user behaviour, discovering what's happening in the market, as well as searching for a unique aesthetic, Lee says.
"As a designer, my job is to blend new functions and technology with aesthetic beauty, as far as possible."
"There are different teams studying new technology trends, working on future design trends and Samsung's own design identity, and they're all regularly exchanging ideas with designers."
Fab-let?
Lee's latest project - a follow-up to the Galaxy model called the Note - is a mini-tablet and phone, with a throwback stylus. Although it looks huge compared with a standard phone, its pinpoint apps and high definition screen should please those using it for video and gaming.
The phone-tablet - or phablet - has sold more than 2 million units since its October launch, and was a crowd pleaser at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.
Lee said the design risk with the note was "breaking a taboo" about keeping handsets small enough to fit easily in your hand.
"But smartphones are more about entertainment. The Note was created by simply breaking that taboo and focusing more on the new functions that smartphones require."
Handsets are now Samsung's biggest earner - bringing in 8.3 trillion won in operating profit last year - and the group's confidence has grown in tandem with its fattening patent book - it registered over 5,000 patents last year alone.
"We were told so many times until the early part of last year that Samsung is not good at software. We're not hearing that as often any more," Samsung Chief Executive Choi Gee-sung said at the CES event in Las Vegas.
Late last month, Choi went further and told reporters at the world's biggest annual mobile show in Barcelona that Samsung would not unveil its new Galaxy model at the Mobile World Congress for fear of rivals copying it.
Yet there's not one software engineer or designer among the 17 Samsung Fellows, Samsung Group's inhouse equivalent of the Nobel prize winners to reward those making a significant contribution to its success. Lee hopes his time will come.
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