Collateral Damage

Apple just announced that they are selling one iPad every 3 seconds. That is a success story, no doubt. But success comes with a price.
The iPad is manufactured in China by a Taipei based company called Foxconn. This company is the largest electronics contract manufacturer in the world. It makes iPhones, iPads but also it makes computer and computer parts for clients like Dell and HP, for example. They handle more than 250,000 workers at the Shenzhen complex (yes one quarter of a million zombies), which can not talk on the production line, bathroom breaks are kept to 10 minutes every two hours and workers are yelled at frequently.

So far this year 10 Foxconn workers have killed themselves. Apple has no explanation nor Foxconn. They wonder why. Mr. Gou, chairman of the board is perplexed. He won Apple's contract thanks to a zero profit deal to make the iPhone and iPad components. That strategy gave him a net income of 2.3 billion for 2009, a jump of 37 percent as he does not charge for the manufacturing of the components but charges to put them together. Good deal for him and for Apple.

Apple can not ditch Foxconn as they are doing a great job. If Apple does that, it could mean a disaster for the clean eco-friendly looking company. Two million units manufactured in less than 60 days is good business. The question remains in  their hands. What to do. For starters they just increased the zombie's salaries  a whooping 30%, so now a college graduate earns $293 US Dollars a month, twice as much as a line worker. They are not ready to look at the working environment conditions just yet. Workers live in dormitories, eight to ten people to a room, for example.

At the end, we get couple of amazing gadgets with a tremendous collateral damage and couple of companies are making millions. There is an App for that.