Today I came across the latest edition of Popular Science which features on the front page, “Meet the iCLONE, How China’s Knockoff Artists Actually Improve On the Originals.” So let me share with you my short and sweet summary and opinions of this article.

Shortly after the iPhone came out the journalist of this article searched everywhere on the web for a black market knockoff. After finding pictures and then following a trail of bread crumbs (if a journalist can do it, you or I could do it) he found out how to get a hold of the iPhone knockoff. MiniOne (the knockoff) is produced by a Chinese company called Meizu. After conversing with their sales representative Ella Wong through email (I’m thinking about contacting her myself after I write this) he decided to fly out to the Hong Kong Electronics Fair where Meizu was featuring the product. This is the part that really made me laugh about the article and the mindset of some journalists. After searching through the fair he found Meizu’s unlisted* booth and asked to speak to Ella Wong. He showed her his business card and some magazines he has been featured in and asked if it was ok to meet with the CEO Mr. Wong now.

Note: This paragraph is a rant
Let’s stop here to think about this. He is going to meet with a company who produces an illegal knockoff of a new product for one of the top companies in the US, he explains to them that he is a journalist and then he thinks he will be able to meet with the CEO (ring-leader) of this company (underground operation)? Don’t people have to go to college to become a journalist? This guy must have skipped all of the analytical thinking classes.

Ella Wong’s answer to his request was, “The Phone? Mr. Wong? That may not be possible.” This is the equivalent of no in China. Something that you will hear a lot about if you ever are interested in Asian culture is that Chinese people do not like to lose face, and they also do not like to make other people lose face. To accomplish this instead of giving you a no for an answer, they prefer to give you a maybe or to stall. The journalists response to this (verbatim), “But… but… what about our e-mails, the conversations, the invitation?” To which her answer was, “Come back, maybe in September.”

The next part of the article talks about a Chinese part-for-part replica of Chevrolet’s Spark automobile called the Chery QQ. The replica is so good that you could take the door of of the Chery and put it on the Spark and the seal would match up perfectly. This is no surprise to me, anyone can put together a team of 20 PhD engineers in China to have them reverse engineer anything for a very low cost. The quality can be as good as the manager specifies and has the know how to require. If they want to, they then have the flexibility and resources to modify or add to the product anything they like (which is a weakness of the large companies that make the original).

That’s all I can bear to write for now, stay tuned for part 2

Popularity: 68% [?]

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 10:59 pm and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.