Samsung to Spend $9.3 Billion on R&D

-
Samsung to Spend $9.3 Billion on R&D

Samsung plans to spend $9.3 billion on research and development this year, as it looks to expand both its business and portfolio to fend off competitors.

The Korean manufacturer has already spent half this amount on R&D to date, exploring mobile devices, semiconductors, displays, and even software development.

By comparison, rival Apple last year spent $7 billion less on R&D than Samsung's planned expenditure. If Samsung can surge ahead of Apple in this respect, it may have a greater chance of beating its arch-enemy in the innovation department.

Software especially may be key, as rumors are circulating that Samsung plans to buy HP's discarded WebOS. After HP ditched its mobile platform, slashed prices on its TouchPad and even declared intentions to scrap its PC business, WebOS appears to be up for grabs, and Samsung may benefit from the purchase.

WebOS may grant Samsung an outlet to further develop its Bada software and decrease its need to rely on outside software. The company today announced four Bada phones it likely hopes will give its OS a boost: the Wave 3, Wave M and Wave Y are all set to run Bada 2.0 OS.

Purchasing WebOS and spending R&D dollars on Bada may ultimately better position Samsung against Google, too. The company currently borrows the Android OS for its smartphones and tablets, but since Google bought Motorola, Samsung may find itself slowly squeezed out of the picture as a leading Android manufacturer.

In addition to shoring up its position against Google by becoming more autonomous in the smartphone and tablet market, Samsung's planned R&D shopping spree could help it secure more patents, which will insulate it against the onslaught of lawsuits and trade injunctions that threaten to hobble the company.

Patents would help Samsung repel Apple in courts around the world, where Apple is currently attacking its Korean counterpart. Apple alleges Samsung's Galaxy line "slavishly" copies the "look and feel" of iPhones and iPads, and is seeking injunctions against all Galaxy products in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and in the U.S.

But Samsung could fight back if it spends money to acquire more patents. The company already owns 100,542 patents from this year alone, putting it in second place behind IBM in the U.S.

If Samsung can acquire more patents under its new $9.3 billion budget, it may challenge Apple's court cases and reverse standing bans on its Galaxy Tab and smartphones.

Although $9.3 billion is no mean sum, but Samsung could eat into that amount quickly purchasing expensive patents, expanding Bada and possibly purchasing WebOS as a means to remain a strong contender in the mobile market. But it may be money well spent as the company consolidates its position against aggressive rivals.

Popular posts from this blog

Virus-based sensors find superbugs in minutes, may lead to safer surfaces

-
Image
Viruses usually have to be rendered inert to work in humanity's favor, as anyone who has received a flu shot can attest. Auburn University has bucked that trend by discovering a way to put active viruses to work in not only diagnosing sickness, but in preventing it in the first place. It's using bacteria-hating (and thankfully harmless) viruses as biosensors to quickly identify superbugs, or antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can sometimes prove fatal. As the viruses change color once they've reached impervious bacterial strains, in this case variants on Staphylococcus, they can reveal superbugs within 10 to 12 minutes -- a potentially lifesaving interval when current purification-driven methods can take hours. Auburn would like to eventually use what it has learned to develop more effective antibacterial glass and similar surfaces. If successfully put into practice, either breakthrough could mitigate what's already a major medical crisis. [Image credit: Bob Blaylo
Read more

Asus Padfone with Tegra 3 coming in early 2012

-
Image
Just as we were settling down to another calm and banterful Engadget Mobile Podcast, our special guest had to go and throw us some hard news. Yup, and rather than making you sit through the entire two-hour recording (pleasant as that would be), we're just going to come right out with it: Nicole Scott from netbooknews.com has it on good authority that the Asus Padfone will be coming out at MWC 2012 in February. What's more, it won't be powered by a Qualcomm Krait S4 as suggested by that strange GLBenchmark we saw earlier -- it will in fact sport a Tegra 3, just like its highly capable big bro the Transformer Prime . See? That's the kind of juicy reward our podcast listeners get for tuning in each week. Asus Padfone with Tegra 3 coming in early 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .
Read more