The MIT Technology Review sat down with Samsung’s Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn, who admitted that Apple devices are hard to beat when it comes to a connected ecosystem. In fact, the man in charge of Samsung’s overall innovation across technologies admitted to actually using a Mac, iPad and iPhone as his personal devices.
“At work I’m using Samsung devices; Apple at home, mainly because all of my systems and files are done that way. That’s sticky, you know?”
Young Sohn is one of the only president-level executives who is based outside of Korea, and his job centers around overseeing innovation in both the U.S. and Korea. He explained that, while Samsung maintains the top position as a smartphone manufacturer globally, there’s still great work to be done.
What Samsung really needs is an amazing ecosystem of connected devices.
“We actually provide more devices that are interacting with consumers than anyone in the world. But if you think about our experiences, it’s device-centric,” said Young Sohn. “It’s experienced by itself. It’s not experienced in a connected way. So we think we can provide a lot more things than what we are doing today with an open ecosystem with our partners.”
We’re already seeing strides in this direction, with Samsung’s App Fridge, Smart TVs, etc. But is it a strong enough start to catch up with Apple’s already well-developed platform?
Sohn believes that Samsung smartphone, such as the Galaxy lines, are actually superior hardware products to Apple’s devices.
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“If you look at the strengths of Apple, in a way it’s not the product per se. It’s that consumers like their ecosystem such as iCloud,” he said. “I like that my family 6,000 miles away in Korea is able to see my schedule and see all of my contacts and photos. It is sticky, but it is a proprietary architecture.”
Sohn started back in August, and will help cultivate Samsung’s two newest R&D facilities, as well as a new accelerator program.
And it seems his goal is clear: “Eventually the connected ecosystem is really critical.”
I think we have probably the largest platform in the world between the devices and displays and televisions we sell. We actually provide more devices that are interacting with consumers than anyone in the world. But if you think about our experiences, it’s device-centric. It’s experienced by itself. It’s not experienced in a connected way. So we think we can provide a lot more things than what we are doing today with an open ecosystem with our partners.
Wait, you are still using Apple products?
At work I’m using Samsung devices; Apple at home, mainly because all of my systems and files are done that way. That’s sticky, you know? However, I did figure out how to sync all of my contacts and all of my schedules between the two different systems. You can do it. It’s a bit of work, but it is possible.
