Civilized Shenzhen Warm Homestead

I spent yesterday afternoon in the city of Shenzhen, a manufacturing hub in China where among many other things, iPhones and iPad are made. I was fairly surprised to find no factories at all in the city proper. Instead there were wide newly paved boulevards, endless rows of some of the largest skyscrapers I have ever seen, modern subway stations, offices, shopping malls, city parks, restaurants, and western hotels. It turns out that by some measures, Shenzhen is the 12th largest city in the world.

I was there to attend a buyer-manufacturer conference for a research project I’m working on. It was an event held at a Westin hotel, where buyers representing international brands from all over the world come to find potential Chinese manufacturing firms to make their products. I’m not sure how I previously imagined this process worked, but it felt surprisingly similar to any other conference or networking event held in a big hotel ballroom. There were just a bunch of people standing around in the hotel, smiling, talking, eating, drinking, exchanging business cards, and hoping to go back to their workplace with a few interesting leads.

Here’s a representative conversation I had with a manufacturer who approached me, presumably thinking I was a potential buyer:

David: Hello, my name is David.
Me: Oh hi David, I’m Sam. What do you do?
David: I work for a manufacturing firm that makes iPads.
Me: Oh, you work for Foxconn? The manufacturer that makes products for Apple?
David: Well, actually no. We make ‘Digital Multimedia Internet Devices’ that are similar to iPads.
Me: Can I see one?
David: Of course!

He then proceeded to pull out a product that looked identical to an iPad, without the Apple logo. He booted it up, and it ran a revised version of Android that looked similar to the iPad OS, albeit with a few noticeable differences.

Me: Interesting.  How much?
David: $100. Maybe a bit more depending on customization options and shipping. I can send them to you in bulk.
Me: Aren’t there some legal issues here? These couldn’t possibly be sold in the United States.
David: We can change it if you need us to. Just let us know how you want it to look, what logo you want, and we can do it. Want to play Angry Birds?

I then spent a few minutes playing Angry Birds on the device. It worked surprisingly well. China continues to surprise me, in some very unexpected ways. I’m not sure where this will lead, but it can’t be good for IP rights, and I’m intrigued what’s next. I later encountered a tablet that looked like a giant iPhone 4, the size of an iPad.

Here are a few pictures:

Shenzhen has an Eiffel Tower of its own:

Civilized Shenzhen Warm Homestead:

An egg-shaped shopping mall in Shenzhen:

The ‘Digital Multimedia Internet Device’:

Angry Birds: