A collection of experiences, of which the latest last week, recommend that LG might be exiting the mobile business. According to chatter, there’ll allegedly be an official announcement tomorrow, April 5, the place the firm may potentially reveal its retirement from the phase. I personally imagine this is the finest resolution LG could make.
No, I’m not hating on LG. Believe it or not, I’ve a lot love for the firm and I’ve very expensive associates who work at or for LG (you already know who you might be, a lot love!). So how come such a drastic transfer, the place we lose one more OG, might be a good thing?
LG Mobile and the platform dilemma
Those of you who’ve been round for the journey would possibly do not forget that LG was actually forwards and backwards between platforms again in the day. This vacillation will, as we’ll quickly see, turn out to be a defining think about LG’s mobile business, which I imagine has a direct correlation with its struggles.
Getting again to the platforms, LG’s push began again in the Windows Mobile days. The LG GM750 involves thoughts with its 3-inch display screen and Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional working system. LG later turned considered one of the three (alongside HTC and Samsung) {hardware} launch companions for Microsoft when Windows Phone 7 got here alongside, and the Optimus 7 was a actually good telephone (additionally being LG’s first Windows Phone).
But in between Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Phone 7, LG began dipping its toes in Android waters, launching its first smartphone operating on Google’s (Android 2.2) platform in 2009 with the LG GW620.
This indecisiveness (or exploring all choices, if you’ll) will intensify and persist in the future for LG. Sure, the different Korean behemoth, Samsung, was just about doing the identical, and so they’re in a fairly good place in the present day. Yes, however Samsung had a sure consistency in different departments, the place LG was missing too.
In protection of LG, or every other producer in the identical place again in the early 2010s, there was no approach in foreseeing that Google and Android will finally blow up. Microsoft was the actual deal, principally having a monopoly over a market that was quick growing. Betting on Windows Mobile (and later Windows Phone) was a protected wager, if solely Microsoft wouldn’t have rested on its laurels, which finally became Windows Phone’s demise. Apple and its iPhone launch in 2007 didn’t significantly assist both…
LG Mobile and the design dilemma
What makes an iPhone an iPhone? Or a Samsung a Samsung? Heck, even a HUAWEI a HUAWEI! It’s the firms that managed to construct a model that’s recognizable that finally succeeded. What do I imply by that? When you have a look at a product and you may immediately inform the model behind it, that’s when you already know they’re doing a good job. Just take into consideration BMW and Porsche (simply to call a couple that is not mobile-related).
LG one way or the other acquired misplaced in the particulars and didn’t create a “signature” for its mobile telephones. It principally threw stuff on the market to see what sticks, with out leaving it on the market sufficient for it to actually stick.
In case that doesn’t make sense, let me put it this fashion. Instead of bettering from era to era, LG went again to the drafting board yearly to announce one thing utterly totally different, abandoning the predecessor, or the primary options it launched.
We all keep in mind the LG G Flex, the first curved show smartphone. It was approach forward of its time, however the venture was deserted only for LG to return to a flat show. At the identical time, the LG G2 was making an attempt to seize the identical market, with a totally different strategy.
The LG G3 was flat, only for the LG G4 to be curved once more. I believe you see the place I’m getting at. …to not point out these leather-based again fashions which solely caught round for a few minutes, although they have been attractive.
Save for the LG brand, there was little to nothing to make an LG telephone immediately recognizable, and that I believe laid down roadblocks in its personal path.
About the solely kind issue LG has not experimented with (at the least not in the type of a completed product on the market) is a foldable machine. Instead, LG selected to go the “Dual Screen” approach however threw in a tornado (actually) alongside the approach with the LG Wing.
Did I point out the V10 and its sturdiness? Yes, that didn’t stick round lengthy sufficient both, the identical approach that the Optimus 3D and the whole 3D smartphone idea have been quickly deserted. How about the LG G5 and Friends, with the modular strategy? Yep, out the window.
So what makes an LG telephone an LG telephone? I assume, if we’ve to place a label on it, it will be “diversity”? No, not in a good approach.
The firm’s finest resolution
Every time a participant (huge or small, doesn’t matter) retires, all of us lose. The market loses, clients lose, innovation takes a hit, individuals lose their jobs, it’s a mess. It’s a lose-lose state of affairs. Especially if the firm is considered one of the OGs (HTC involves thoughts as properly), you may’t assist however really feel sentimental, nostalgic. I simply fired up my G Flex 2: it nonetheless works.
So how the heck is LG exiting the mobile business a good resolution? Well, it is, if you happen to’re LG. The just one profitable from this whole state of affairs is, paradoxically, LG itself. It’s not that the behemoth doesn’t have the assets to fund a non-profitable phase of its large group. It’s about pouring water into a bucket crammed with holes. At one level you simply get bored with doing it, particularly if you happen to’re making an attempt to pluck them, and one other one pops up.
The hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands the firm was spending on analysis, improvement, manufacturing, and lots of different facets concerned in its mobile business will most definitely be put to raised use elsewhere.
At this level, I want it was an April Fools’ joke and I’ve wasted an hour penning this. But did I? You see, even when it was a joke, LG nonetheless has a huge downside which it failed to unravel for years and years on finish. And, at this level, I don’t assume it may give you something (that it hasn’t already tried) that may flip the tables in its favor.
What do you assume? Drop us a line in the feedback under. Share your story, opinion, recollections and let’s have a dialog.
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