Samsung had trucks of apples delivered to its offices and placed in rooms where employees took coffee breaks. They were then encouraged to take a literal bite out of Apple (or, well, an apple) as the South Korean tech giant waged war with the Cupertino-based tech giant.
The anecdote comes from a forthcoming book, titled Samsung Rising. It promises to tell the story of how Samsung took on Apple and the battles that followed. “We had one objective: beat Apple,” says an unnamed Samsung executive in the book. “I’m not kidding you.”
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Samsung Rising is written by Geoffrey Cain, a technology reporter who specializes in Asia-based reporting. The new book is based on interviews with hundreds of people relaying the story of Samsung’s rise and its various (Apple-shaped) challenges along the way.
As can be seen from the choice of cover, an out-of-focus copy of Apple’s old rainbow-colored logo, Apple looms large over the story.
Apple vs. Samsung: The book that will reveal all
The book is due to be published March 17. Ahead of that date, the Daily Mail has published an excerpt. It deals with Ellen DeGeneres’ record-breaking celebrity selfie taken on a Samsung handset while hosting the Oscars in 2014.
Cain writes that the move was a shot at Apple which, for years, had been been seen in the hands of the rich and famous. “[Samsung’s] bosses had been seething at the omnipresence of celebrities holding its arch-rival Apple’s iPhones,” the book states.
Getting Ellen to sport a Galaxy Note was an attempt to change the perception. However, as Cain notes, “The ironic truth is they’d had to train Ellen, an iPhone user, how to use the Galaxy.”
The excerpt also reveals the inspiration for the name of Samsung’s Galaxy handset, which it has positioned as an iPhone killer. According to Cain, it was named after a $95 bottle of Californian red wine which one of Samsung’s executives had enjoyed. They believed that it had a “premium ring” to it.
