Manufacture vs Design
I am in Hong Kong now meeting with ODM makers who can manufacture the products that FON makes. Tomorrow I will go to meet with Accton in Taiwan, our lead supplier. As I have these meetings I wonder why is it that so many of the products designed in the States and Europe are made in China while few of the products designed in China are sold in Europe and the States. I am sure many people have looked at this phenomenom and have tried to come up with theories. To me it is a question of focus. At FON in Madrid, all we think about is user experience, software, the manufacturers we work with however are concentrated on the art to make the most for the least amount of money. Very different proposition. We need each other.
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Posted on FON | 8:29 pm
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Posted by kmt - September 13, 2006 9:14 pm - #
Yin and Yang.
Posted by Killy_the_frog - September 14, 2006 3:48 am - #
I live in China…. I can tell you that usually Chinese taste (for home, fashion, website, design in general) do not match with foreign taste.
Just have a look to chinese websites… a typical example is: http://www.51job.com/ (famous job hunting website)
88 (chinese internet way to say bye bye)
Posted by Arthur - September 14, 2006 12:39 pm - #
Hi Martin,
As you said – The West has a softisticated consumer market and we specialize in servicing their needs. Which explains our huge trade deficit with China. We are also more receptive than the Chinese to imports of consumer technology (I didn’t see too many Sony’s and Panasonics in the stores when I worked in China). The trend may be that China will slowly open their domestic market as consumers become more refined in what they demand – much like Japan, Taiwan, and less so S. Korea until recently.
Posted by El Jamon - September 14, 2006 6:07 pm - #
Hey Martin…I like the idea of Fon…but I have a question…what’s the range of your wireless routers?…I’ve got a wireless router from my current ISP and can’t get a signal beyond my garden…isn’t that a problem with wanting to share broadband with other laptops outside your home?