Lara Dutta praises rival at launch
By Neeraj Gulati

Samsung is among the top 3 phone companies in the world and has had a very good 2011 despite its many legal battles with arch rival Apple.  Apple, worried about the Samsung’s success, has moved Courts in Australia, Europe, USA and wherever it could to stop Samsung selling its Galaxy Tab. The last thing Samsung needed was one of their Indian ‘Ambassadors’ publicly praising Apple.

On Friday,  a German Court, based on Apple legal action, ordered Samsung to stop displaying its Galaxy Tab 7.7 at IFA 2011 which is one of the world’s biggest consumer electronics show.  Apple is doing all it can to stop some Samsung Tablets and Smartphones. 

Despite all its battles with Apple, Samsung is now the world’s second largest smarphone seller.

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT-ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym.  A Tipster wrote in about how one of the Samsung Ambassador’s in India, Lara Dutta, praised rival Apple’s iPad, at a Samsung launch in Delhi.

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Miss Universe winner and Bollywood actress Lara Dutta made even more headlines earlier this year when she married Tennis super star Mahesh Bhupathi.

Trust Indian celebrities to make a faux pas in a technology related event. In August, in New Delhi, Samsung launched its Tablet PC- the Samsung Galaxy Tab 730 and 750.As is the norm with Samsung and other electronic goods manufacturers, Lara Dutta was called to launch the tablet. Like in the case of many celebrities and politicians, Lara Dutta turned up about 40 minutes late to the launch event.

Her fashionable late entrance was just the beginning and there was more to come. When the Tablets were held up for photo shoots, one of the journalists said that this was remarkably similar to Apple's iPad 2. When the question was asked to Y H Lee, Senior VP, Global Marketing ,regarding the Apple lawsuit, he said that apart from the comments issued to the global press, the company cannot comment on the situation. At which time, Lara Dutta jumped in and said that despite using an iPad 2, she loved the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750. Much to the embarrassment of Samsung executives, she tried to salvage the situation and said that henceforth she will only use the Galaxy Tab 750.

Overheard from the sidelines from a Samsung executive- "Firstly, she turns up 40 minutes late and then goofs up during the launch. Aamir Khan would have been definitely a better bet for this launch and apart from his professionalism would have been a better draw."
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