Apple tries to avoid Motorola’s mistakes in China [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]

The story of Motorola in China. “At one point, Motorola was so big that you didn’t ask for a cell phone (in China), you asked for a Motorola,” Motorola’s former Chief Technology Officer Dennis Roberson. As far as capitalist roader goes, this is a story on the demands China made on its long-term ‘friend’ Motorola since the start of its ‘socialist market economy’. Motorola had entered China’s market at a time most other American companies were wary of the Communist threat.

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Apple tries to avoid Motorola’s mistakes in China
By Lou Kilzer
Source – PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, published April 3, 2011

Chairman Mao Zedong had been dead for two years, and China’s economic system was about to follow him to the grave.

An economic backwater in 1978, the Communist country lived on politics, not production. But that year, Deng Xiaoping out-maneuvered political opponents to become China’s paramount leader.

Through a radical experiment that became known as “socialist market economy,” he set out to save China by welcoming Westerners to invest.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Chinese Model, Communications, Domestic Growth, Economics, Influence, Motorola, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Politics, Strategy, Technology, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, U.S.