Saturday, October 29, 2016

The fatal error committed by Samsung with the Galaxy Note 7 – The Wall Street Journal Americas

The x-rays and ct scans showed a marked protuberance.

After reports of fire of its Galaxy smartphones Note 7 to the beginning of September, the executives of Samsung Electronics Co. they debated how to respond. Some downplayed the incidents, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, but others thought that the company should act with firmness.

A lab report indicated that the images of some phones defective showed a lump in the batteries of the Notice 7 supplied by its subsidiary Samsung SDI Co. Lee Jae-yong, the likely heir of the third generation of Samsung, who has advocated for greater transparency of one of the world’s most opaque in the world.

That decision from the beginning of September, based on evidence that is incomplete, continues to punish Samsung.

Two weeks after we began to distribute millions of new phones with the batteries from another supplier, the company was forced practically to acknowledge that their initial diagnosis was incorrect after the occurrence of new cases of fire. Before the renewed questions of the regulators, Lee and Koh decided to take the drastic step of ending Note 7.

The Galaxy Note series helped to catapult Samsung to the leadership of the market of smartphones and the Note 7 had all the conditions to be a success. For a moment, it seemed it could attract users of the iPhone, Apple Inc., and to solidify the position of Samsung as one of the technology companies more dominant in the world.

instead, their leaders are fighting to save the reputation of the company and is now at risk the launch in February of its next flagship phone, which will probably be called Galaxy S8.

it Is expected that the Safety Commission Consumer Products Usa (CPSC, for its acronym in English) to investigate whether Samsung will notified in time about the risks of the device. The decision of Samsung to make your own retreat from the market, bypassing the formal process of the CPSC, could have been avoided by the regulators help me by learning more about the source of the problem, as suspected by some u.s. lawmakers.

A spokeswoman for Samsung said the company cooperated quickly with the regulator and acted immediately when problems arose. "We recognized that we had not identified the problem the first time and we remain committed to finding the source," he said.

Some experts have suggested a number of possible causes, from the software that manages the interaction of the battery with other components of the design of the whole circuit. Engineers also are studying the possibility that the battery case has been too small for a battery of that capacity, according to an executive of the mobile division of Samsung.

to Carry out large withdrawals from the market is never easy for a company. Anyway, consumers tend to forgive mistakes if they believe that the company cares about them and acts quickly to address the problems.

"What Samsung should have done, from very early on, was to share even their preliminary findings and thoughts" with us regulators in place to announce the withdrawal by your account, it says Stuart Statler, former commissioner of the CPSC, and current independent consultant of safety products.

The executives of Samsung have delayed the development of the Galaxy S8 for weeks while the engineers try to get to the bottom of the overheating problem of Note 7, as a member of the team working on the new phone. In the meantime, investors have seen how they have slipped near US$ 20,000 million in the market value of Samsung, which has indicated that the withdrawal will cost US$ 5,000 million or more, including sales not materialized.

The Galaxy Note series, which debuted in 2011, has been a source of pride for the giant south Korean, who for many years had been the object of derision by following in the footsteps of the iPhone, and was sued by Apple for allegedly copying. The larger screen of phablets was in tune with the changing tastes of consumers.

For when it launched the third-generation in September 2013, the Galaxy Note was a great success, with 10 million units sold in two months. The following year, Apple launched its first iPhone the size of a Galaxy Note.

As they came out rumors that the iPhone 7 would have only incremental improvements, Koh and other senior executives earned their confidence about the prospects of launching almost parallel to your new phone. The company even decided to skip the number 6 and decided to call the new model Note 7, a change which would lead to direct comparisons with the iPhone.

The engineers of Samsung incorporated new elements, such as an iris scanner, water resistance, a stylus improved and about 16% more battery life than the previous model. The pre-sales of the Note 7 took off with force after Koh presented the device at an elegant event at a theater in Manhattan on August 2. The analysts increased their projections of profits for Samsung, and investors pushed the action to historic highs.

as they began to arise the reports of fires, some executives thought that many were “fake” and argued that even a small amount of genuine cases not would taint the fact that millions of smartphones worked well, according to sources.

After seeing the x-rays and ct of the phone, which seemed to indicate heat damage to the internal structure of the battery, Lee and Koh they felt that they had all the evidence needed to conclude that the problem was in the battery of Samsung SDI, the sources said. They argued that it was more important for Samsung to "do the right thing" and take action instead of waiting for more information, a delay that could exacerbate the crisis, according to one of the people.

on The 2nd of September, at a press conference in Seoul, Koh said that the company had identified a problem with one of their suppliers and moved the production to another.

In Washington, the announcement surprised the CPSC, which often collaborate with the companies to study a problem and plan a withdrawal from the market. Samsung did not notify the CPSC until later that day, according to sources, about two weeks after the first incident reported.

at The beginning, the withdrawal from the market seemed to work. In 90% of cases, consumers were asking for a Note 7 replacement, according to Samsung. The CPSC, however, did not seem in accordance with the maneuvers of the company and on the 9th of September took the unusual decision to warn consumers not to use the phone while it continued its investigation. Days later, Samsung and the CPSC finally agreed to a formal removal.

in the meantime, began to arise complaints of overheating of phones and replacement isolated cases of failure of the battery. In China, the company dismissed cases of fire and invented. Then came the evacuation of a plane Southwest Airlines Co. at the beginning of October due to smoke from a Samsung.

Senior executives of the cellular operators, among them Lowell McAdam of the united states operator Verizon Communications Inc., asked to Read that discontinuara quickly the Note 7, according to sources. On October 11, Lee called out to Koh and ordered him to put an end to the phone. On the 11th of October, in a letter to the internal that had access to The Wall Street Journal, Koh described the crisis as "one of the most difficult challenges that we have faced". While the decision has contained the damage by now, the analysts have raised questions about the future of the series Galaxy Note, arguing that the brand is very tainted, and that the company should remove it completely.

—Eun-Young Jeong in Seoul, Ryan Knutson in New York and Takashi Mochizuki in Tokyo contributed to this article.

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