Samsung is a hardware company. They make hardware and drop in open source Android. They even make the new amoled screens in the new iPhone. What do you call a company that uses their own proprietary closed source software on their main competitor’s hardware? A software company.
I hold this certification below, as well as many others from this highly-regarded security training institute. I could excerpt the section from my class materials backing me up, but somehow, I don’t think it’ll matter.
https://www.sans.org/course/mobile-device-security-ethical-hacking
Unlike Apple, Samsung is a service company, and a software company. Bet you forgot that service part, which is primarily what Samsung is. Samsung is still a service company even as they design and develop software to support devices, which are almost all manufactured by the Android OEMs. Samsung does not manufacture their own devices, though they claim a bunch of them under the Pixel label and other brands.
But, on the computer/IT side, Samsung is a service company, with Google Search being it’s bread and butter. Not they’re into the cloud. They’ve been on the Android side for over 10 years, but that’s still software meant to be used with their SERVICES sides, meaning “search” and “cloud” and a host of others. Hardware is their minor side. Google is also attempting to be a big player on the autonomous vehicle space, but then, that is mostly the software side of the business. The hardware would be from the automakers and the makers of the modules that would be controlled by that autonomy software.
Samsung is mostly like Microsoft, and Apple is mostly like... Apple.
Amazon is also a services company, where they design software to be used by their services, like the cloud. Alexa is software and their Eco devices are hardware, but the whole scope is mostly software, where even 3rd parties can design apps for the platform. That platform is served via Amazon cloud. Amazon cloud is their bread and butter, and that’s the services side of the company. Amazon is mostly known to people as the Amazon store, but the store is nowhere close to being as productive as the Amazon cloud. Amazon does have a few devices, but then, Amazon is not known as a hardware company, and whatever hardware they do have were produced in order to be served by it’s services and cloud and software. IOW, Amazon is kinda like Google and Microsoft. Among the three, Google/Amazon/Microsoft, it’s MS that is the furthest along to being a hardware company and a software and services company.
Apple does not fit into the “software” category, though they do provide software to service their hardware. Apple’s software CANNOT be used outside of the Apple ecosystem. It’s that distinction which you can’t seem to fathom.
Your “certification” does not qualify you to be the judge for categorizing what a company’s main focus is. Most IT people have always categorized Apple as a hardware company, and I’ve actually NEVER heard of any one that has any kind of credibility in the IT field that has spoken of Apple as primarily a software company.
Samsung is a hardware company, and they make complete stand-alone devices, and components to be used by other OEMs to manufacture their own stand-alone devices. When it comes to their own devices, Samsung has attempted to be like Apple, where they’ve come up with “their own” OS to run their devices, and additional software and services to support those devices. But, they haven’t been successful with their own OS or their own apps/applications/services. Samsung is basically dependent on Google and Microsoft for software and services. In that sense, Samsung is not like Apple; they don’t lock people in with total control of their ecosystem, like Apple does. Amoled screens are hardware, and any OEM can use Samsung’s screens, thus, there is NO LOCK-IN with Samsung’s hardware.
YOUR materials that YOU think qualify YOU to determine how a company should be qualified, is totally useless. What matters is what a company does with whatever hardware and software and services it offers. YOUR “ethical” hacking certificate is not better than what the business and software and hardware and services professionals say. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’m a lot better qualified to categorize corporations than you with your “hacking” certificate. I’ve been in the IT industry for over 40 years, though now retired. I saw many hardware and software companies come and go, and I understood quite well what all of them had to offer in hardware and software and services. I still do, and I keep up with the industry. YOU believe that your “hacking” credentials are better qualifications, but I look at exactly what is happening in the REAL world of hardware and software and services, where what a company does is well-defined by what their primary missions are.
BTW, NEVER throw degrees or certificates out as support for whatever you want to espouse. That kind of tactic does not work to make you any more credible in a discussion.