What They Say
There are widespread reports that Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-hee has died, aged 78. He stepped down in 2008 as chairman, but rejoined in 2010, but was made bed-ridden by a heart attack in 2014.
He was twice convicted of criminal offences, but was given a pardon in 2009.
What We Think
Lee was very influential in improving the quality of Samsung’s products. In the early ’90s, I was the European distributor for the DisplayMate test software. Although I had been in the monitor market for more than 10 years, I hadn’t really been watching Samsung’s quality. I was doing a demo of the test software after explaining how it would show the problems of this cheap Korean monitor (I had focused on Japanese-made products). However, the performance was way better than I expected and eventually I had to admit it was a really good monitor!
Samsung is a vast conglomerate (Wikipedia reports it’s revenues are equivalent to 17% of Korea’s GDP!) and so the death of one person will probably not affect it that much. However, someone inside may want the company to move in a different direction. (BR)
Lee Kun-hee in 2010. Image:Samsung
