Comment by drzaiusapelord
11 years ago
>positioning itself as a company with design chops of Apple
Are you kidding? Xaiomi is a classic copycat Chinese company that lifts designs and ideas from elsewhere, but sits pretty with the CCP so has access to the local market.
http://www.cultofandroid.com/66569/xiaomi-dont-copy-apple/
Heck they cant even make an invite without copying Apple
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/xiaomis-apple-fixation-goes-to-a-...
>engineering chops of Google,
Reselling a skinned Android that looks a lot like iOS isn't exactly the "engineering chops of Google."
I'd be VERY surprised if this Baidu car is remotely competitive with its Western counterparts, especially when companies like Mercedes have been working on this stuff for decades.
I think both Baidu's AI lab in Beijing and its Silicon Valley lab led by Andrew Ng have top researchers and engineers. The copy issue only shows how bad laws are enforced in China, and there is a lot to improve. Also, I don't think the tech of self-driving car can be copied. The idea can be copied and in these days, idea is cheap. That said, I totally agree that China needs IT companies that do cutting edge stuff within one field. Baidu, Tencent, and even Alibaba all failed to do so. But I have a good feeling about the future. Look at some of the young and promising start-ups in China that have leading technology in its own field:
http://www.faceplusplus.com/
http://www.dji.com/
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/
Edited format.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I don't see what's wrong with copying, to be honest. People copy successful business models and best practices all the time-- some even write books about it. And a belief that's long held in tech circles is that ideas are worth nothing, and that execution is what matters. To give credit to Xiaomi, they're setting up themselves a very high bar when they set out to imitate Apple. Google tried it with its initial launch of Android, and if it weren't for M Duarte joining Google in the wake of Palm falling apart, who knows how Android would have looked today. In developing countries, to be able to own a phone that looks ever so similar to iPhone but costs a fraction of the cost is an instant hit. It results in a very good business [0].
I'd give you another example: Flipkart, in its early days, had a website that looked very much like Amazon's. They've since carved out their own identity and were among top 20 well designed apps on iOS Appstore last year (one of the many India-based apps to make the list) [1].
UX is another prime example of how often companies copy each other. Steve Jobs once famously quoted Picasso "Good artists copy, great artists steal" [2] Copying is rampant in the software side of the industry... websites look alike, marketing emails look alike, business models look alike, approaches to solve problems are alike... I am not trying to argue that Xiaomi is anywhere near Google or Apple, what I am saying is that they might just get there or thereabouts; or someone else might outside of the SV.
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/xiaomi-mi-note-apple-samsung-... | http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/04/21/xiaomi-to-m...
[1] http://www.nextbigwhat.com/top-top-made-in-india-ios-apps-20...
[2] http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-whe...
I think the point is that being able to copy does not show (though doesn't disprove either) that you have the technical prowess to surpass the copied.
Wait for a few years and you will change your mind.
Haha When the co's making money for the investors, the investors give a damn about anything other than the profit...