John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Samsung Elbows Apple With Stake in Gorilla Glass Maker Corning

Samsung has inked a deal that should ensure it a plentiful supply of liquid crystal display glass through the next decade.

Under an agreement announced Tuesday, Samsung will hand over to Corning its 43 percent stake in Samsung Corning Precision Materials, an LCD glass joint venture the two companies operate in Korea. In return, it will receive $1.9 billion in convertible preferred shares in the Gorilla Glass maker. Samsung has also agreed to invest another $400 million in preferred shares of Corning. While those shares aren’t convertible for seven years, they effectively give Samsung a 7.4 percent stake in Corning, making it the company’s largest shareholder.

Why does such a circuitous display deal matter? Well, Corning happens to produce glass for a number of consumer electronics companies, including Apple — Samsung’s archrival in the mobile space. While the two companies didn’t provide many details on the inner workings of their new relationship, they did say that it will improve “collaborations on strategic product development and commercialization initiatives.” That may prove to be quite advantageous to Samsung as it looks for new ways to differentiate its smartphones and tablets from Apple’s.

Corning is doing all manner of incredible stuff with glass these days. Having early and easy access to such innovations could be a real boon for Samsung, particularly if it’s able to field products based on them before competitors can.

Twitter’s Tanking

December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

2013 Was a Good Year for Chromebooks

December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik