Cash-strapped Sharp puts HQ, factories in hock With negotiations stalled on a hoped-for equity investment from Taiwan's Hon Hai, Sharp has set in motion a contingency plan that will see it put up nearly all of its domestic real estate as collateral for up to $3.8bn in bank loans. On Thursday, a representative for the embattled TV and smartphone component maker confirmed to …
Which I totally am...
But perhaps my prediction from earlier in the year that apple's nose-spite-face hatred litigation with, competitors will bite it in the arse is on schedule.
So. Now. If this plays out as it looks like it could, will apple end up having to buy Sharp (or fund Hon Hai's acquisition) because they're too proud to go cap-in-hand back to Samsung who seem to be the only innovator company who can provide the technology, quality and quantity, assuming they're tooled (and maybe licensed if they didn't invent it) to make sensor-in-pixel panels.
#FootBullet
Working displays on a smartphone.
I can hear the frantic penning of the standardised excuses as cookie throws another bucket of kittens into the RDF generator.
You're obviously looking at it wrong.
Black is a colour too.
All displays have dead pixels and banding, and what ever else the new displays have problems with.
It's all Samsung's fault.
Well, recall that Sharp slogan (one I to which I found warm humor and chuckles in):
"From SHARP minds come SHARP products".
Now, those words may hurt apple in the ass if Sharp cannot fix it's production problems. If they get very deep into apple, it could hurt as in "From Sharp minds come SHARP prod ducts" as they wend their way back toward profitability.
That seems insane, though: mortgaging ALL their Japan-based/domestic property and other assets there and elsewhere in other parts of the world to borrow a schload of money that almost assuredly will be wiped out in a handful of months just on the learning curve and the machinery tweaks. IF the iPhone sells well (as it most assuredly will), you can bet that Apple will take a deep bite in the pre-profits cash and hawkishly monitor the books to ensure that Sharp will have to be VERY sharp and not just Sharp to actually get a recovery on its mortgaging scheme which might come back to haunt Sharp severely.
Apple can sell all the phones it wants or can, but it would be a tragedy for a lot of people if Sharp got steam-rolled out of gree... umm, eagernes to get that possibly lucrative contract.
OTOH, as suggested above in a post before mine, Apple might be forced to invest deeply in Sharp if Sharp starts stumbling. Even Apple doesn't want to be in the business of owning a manufacturing facility (after all, Apple shed most of the remainder of if not ALL of their physical production plants by the late 90s, IIRC, and I do recall as a courier in the 90s driving past a LOT of Apple facilities in Campbell, Cupertino, Fremont, and a few other places when they IIRC had or owned more than 20 buildings in that area alone, not counting their then-growing collection of office campuses) which cannot be easily and on-the-spot reconfigured. If Apple suddenly vanished, I am pretty sure that Hon Hai/Foxconn would keep chugging along as other companies would suddenly be in a commanding posittion to demand better pricing and Foxconn could divert feverishly humming resoures to others, until those companies peter out.
Does anyone know what stops Foxconn from being able to make more of what Apple wants/needs? Is it lack of tech, lack of expertise, lack of patents, or something else or all of those? Maybe we we'll see a new "AppSharpConn"? Or "ShaPpleConn"?
I worked in the kitchens of their Manchester plant as a student in the 80s. And I also worked for Tandy, who rebadged loads of their kit and sold it under their Realistic name. It was good merchandise, and a great place to work.
This is a rather drastic step for them to take. I hope they can pull it off.
"...iPhone labour camps at Foxconn,,,"
No mention of Samsung:- BBC News 6 September 2012
"A campaign group has accused Samsung of "illegal and inhumane violations", days after the firm promised to widen its own checks on its factories in China.
New York-based China Labour Watch (CLW) says it has evidence of long working hours, under-age workers and poor conditions in eight Samsung factories.
In response, the South Korean firm said it would "re-evaluate working hours".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19504381
But then if it weren't snidey anti-Apple scrawlings, it wouldn't be El Reg, would it?
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