As Samsung continues its focus on hardware, the startups it collects at the accelerator’s headquarters will be more focused on software.

Also in the innovation/Silicon Valley idiom, Samsung announced earlier this year that it would be making heavy investments in startups around the Western Hemisphere.

The Samsung Ventures America Fund is a $1 billion fund separate from Samsung’s $1 billion in assets under management through Samsung Ventures investments. The company also established a separate $100 million Samsung Catalyst Fund to invest in global innovation.

Samsung also announced at that time it would be opening a new Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center in Menlo Park, a relative stone’s throw away from the accelerator in Palo Alto.

“We see tremendous opportunities and transformations over the next five years driven by Big Data centered around mobility, cloud and the internet of things,” said Samsung chief Young Sohn in a statement on the company’s Silicon Valley ambitions.

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It will be part of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center division, which will also include a New York incubator come September. Next, the company may open incubators in other tech hubs such as Austin, Boston, Russia, and Israel.

How did Samsung get so big so fast?

Gotta keep up with the iPhone, yo!

http://pandawhale.com/post/6194/iphone-7-prototype

Not a bad strategy, hey!  Today's Dominance = Revenue For Decades.

http://readwrite.com/2013/07/11/wall-streets-shortsighted-view-on-samsung-and-apple?

It's just interesting to see them have a huge Silicon Valley presence all at once.

They finally decided it matters.

Who's next, Microsoft?

Samsung can do a lot of things other companies cannot. They can get their teams (and coopt and buy new teams) to get behind any vision.

But that's also frustrating because it makes me wonder what is essentially Samsung?

Samsung is...

-a huge global company with a long institutional memory

-a hardware company across many consumer electronics lines

-is strapped with cash and not afraid to spend it

-is building great mobile products and needs the right software/engines to drive it

-a company with a great position in television

-a company passionate enough to build great stuff yet dispassionate enough to compete with the big U.S. tech players.

Wow, they are a true Apple competitor. Once Apple decides to get into television, that is.