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Comment by zdw | Hacker News Reader

Fundamentally, the businesses (outside of technology focused firms) are nothing more than middlemen that add little value.

I'm waiting for Foxconn or similar to start making their own commodity items and selling them directly - you can, for example, already buy SFF computers with the Foxconn label on them.

It's just a matter of time for the profit engines that US corporations have created to be cloned and have the entire profit center go overseas.

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The businesses that "add little value" are envied in China because they have access to demand, and he who owns demand is key. The Chinese are making it a priority to advance their marketing, design, etc. abilities to compete in the West's consumer culture. While you may not like marketing, it brings in the money - and in our consumerist economy that's our GDP...

I'd like to see Foxconn try to replace Apple - hell even Dell. Lenovo had to buy their business from IBM to get the marketing / brand support to be successful beyond their manufacturing capabilities.

It's hard to market from a culture from the outside. VW made their German designers live with US families - which is when they figured out why we want cup holders so badly ;-)

Foxconn (and similar) do design a lot of products already, they just are acting as an ODM and not slapping their own name on them. I suspect, though, they are happy with this arrangement as it allows them to make many more products in any segment than a single brand would get away with.

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