I want to begin by saying that I am a fan of both of these companies. I own just as many Samsung products as I do Apple products though I own more traditional Samsung products (i.e. monitors, blu-ray players, televisions, etc). I admit though that a $1 billion payout was shocking so my biggest concern is how this will impact Samsung as a company and the quality of the products they produce.
In a statement issued by Samsung they expressed the ruling as a “loss for the consumer” and that it will result in “fewer choices, less innovation and higher prices”. This seems to be a little extreme because I think Samsung controls whether those statements come true or not. If anything this should help Samsung to be more innovative. Instead of trying to copy what Apple did they should create their own design. Granted I can see why Samsung wanted to use Apple as a model for manufacturing their phones considering how successful the iPhone has been. I can see the potential for a price hike on Samsung products not only from the dollar amount of the ruling but the extra cost now of additional R&D so this doesn’t happen again. The consequence of “less innovation” will be Samsung’s choice and has little to do with Apple.
I also disagree that this was a dispute over “rectangles with rounded corners”. I think that is over simplifying what the case was about. I have seen some of the images that had a side-by-side comparison of the iPhone with Samsung phones and there was a lot more in common. In fact the Samsung phone looked almost like a clone of the iPhone, with only slight variations, right down to the icons (and as we’ve seen from the MMO world, clones of more successful products are bad – allegedly).
Unfortunately the biggest consequence of this ruling will only make Apple appear to be a bigger thug (to the haters) and Samsung will probably see a surge in product sales from pity purchasing. Personally I will continue to buy products from both companies as it pertains to my needs. My brand loyalty to both companies hasn’t changed. It is amusing though that Google stayed under the radar to distance themselves from this brouhaha and Microsoft is still the laughable runt in the corner of a room full of giants.
Cheers!