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Comment by ahk | Hacker News Reader

Highly unlikely that a German company will be able to muster a global mass market audience. They just don't think that big.

Apple is not going to be too worried of losing their base over something that's likely of the same quality as a windows beige box

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Germany is only the largest exporter in the world in 2007: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_exp-economy-exports and the second largest in 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports

So it is not "highly unlikely" that a German company will muster a mass market audience.

I agree however Apple definitely wins on the quality of products and the seamlessness of the experience, but that doesn't mean no company can compete.

He's referring to the consumer tech market place. When's the last time a German company launched a piece of consumer hardware that had worldwide market share?

I'm using EyeTV with my Mac to view TV.

German company. Great products.

EyeTV does not have large market share, in the sense that it does not compete on the scales of the ipad (which is what we're discussing).

I'm not bad mouthing German companies or products. I drive a VW.

they sell in a lot of countries, incl. the US.

Not every one is as large as Siemens, Bosch, Blaupunkt, ...

There are Braun, Loewe, Navigon, Sennheiser, ...

Do cars count?

Gigaset (Siemens' phone company) and T-Mobile come to mind as large German global consumer technology brands.

T-Mobile is great example, thanks.

Don't tell VW that. Or Aldi. Or...

VW the car manufacturer? An industry where innovation consists of switching the color of paint to yellow?

And Aldi's? The poor man's Walmart?

Wow, what an idiotic statement that is.

Isn't Walmart already the poor man's Walmart?

I owned a VW Golf ... best car I ever had.

I don't care about what anybody says, german automobiles are the best (for a while I was thinking of switching to a Toyota, but after those incidents with the sudden acceleration, no thanks).

Now I'm stuck with a french piece of shit that nobody wants to buy :)

German cars [1] were lagging behind Asian cars in reliability a few years ago AFAIK. I heard they have caught up. Skodas should be nice, too. Skoda comes from the Czech Republic, but were bought by VW some time ago.

[1] Opel, I am looking at you!

Aldi has quite a success in the US now. Walmart tried to get into the German market, OTOH. They give up after wasting a lot of money. There was more competition then they could take.

Germany has companies like Siemens. With a couple of hundred thousand employees all over the world. Hundred thousand in the US alone.

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