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本帖{zh1}由 lilywizardry 于 2010-1-27 22:13 编辑
The business of dissecting electronics
商业和电子产品的拆解
The lowdown on teardowns
大卸八块的背后
Ripping apart smart-phones reveals their true cost
拆解只能手机，发现真正价值
Jan 21st 2010
From The Economist print edition
GADGET-LOVERS the world over are already salivating at the thought of getting their hands on Apple’s much-hyped tablet computer, which is expected to be revealed on January 27th. Most of them just like the idea of playing with a new high-tech toy. But a few have darker designs. They cannot wait to rip the device apart, analyse its design, identify its parts and calculate how much it costs to make.
去世界的小设备爱好者们热切的期盼着1月27日苹果{sk}平板电脑的发布会。他们之中很多人对这款电脑只是抱着新款高科技玩具的心态。但是还有一小部分另有“企图”。他们迫不及待的想把这款电脑大卸八块，分析其设计，辨认内部零件，并且估量造价成本。
These “teardowns”, as they are called, are common practice in the electronics industry, and are usually performed in-house. Now, however, more of this activity is being outsourced to specialised firms such as iSuppli and UBM TechInsights. Their findings provide a glimpse into the inner workings not just of individual devices but also the fast-growing consumer-electronics business itself.
这些人口中的“拆解”在电子界是很常见的，而且常常由公司内部人完成。而今，这项工作大多都会外包给专门的公司，比如说iSuppli和UBM TechInsights。他们的发现不仅仅使得人们窥探到这些设备内部的工作原理，更使得我们了解到快速增长的电子行业本身。
Derek Lidow, iSuppli’s boss, says companies that design and market gadgets sometimes hire firms like his to tear apart and analyse products whose manufacture they have outsourced to others. Some customers simply want to know why their competitors, often of Chinese provenance, can be so cheap—either to prove suspicions of dumping or to show their own engineers how to do better.
iSuppli的老板德里克-里都说，他的公司为那些设计和出售电子产品的公司服务，公司拆解并分析其他公司的产品，这些公司的产品也外包给其他公司生产。一些客户仅仅是想了解他们的竞争对手，一般是中国的厂家，提供的产品为何如此廉价，他们聘请类似iSuppli的公司来证明他们对于中国厂商倾销的怀疑或是通过拆解产品来使他们的工程师学习如何做到更好。
With a smart-phone, for example, iSuppli starts by looking at how its 1,000 or so parts are put together. Apple has the most creative and dense designs, says Andrew Rassweiler, who heads iSuppli’s teardown service. But its rivals are catching up fast. The design of Google’s recently launched phone, the Nexus One, made by HTC of Taiwan, is almost as advanced as that of the latest iPhone.
例如，对于智能手机，iSuppli在拆解的开始先要分析这种手机是如何将上千个部件组合起来的。iSuppli的拆解工作负责人安德鲁-拉斯韦勒说，苹果的产品是{zj1}创意的，也是精细度{zg}的。但是苹果的竞争对手很快也能追赶上来。谷歌最近推出的，由台湾HTC生产的Nexus One有赶超{zx1}款iPhone的势头。
The next steps in a teardown are identifying the parts and calculating the costs of materials and assembly. Components, especially memory chips, have continued to fall in price. This is why the first iPhone model cost $218 to build and the latest only $170, despite its superior performance. Assembly costs are minimal—just $6.50 for the current iPhone. Even though the parts in high-end smart-phones differ widely, their total construction cost often falls in a narrow range of $170-180 (see chart). Makers apparently set a budget and see what they can fit in, says Mr Rassweiler.
拆解的下一步工作就是辨认零部件以及计算这些零部件在材料和装配方面的成本。零部件，特别是存储芯片，都在不停的降价。所以，尽管最近款的iPhone的性能更加优越，也只售170美元，而最早的iPhone价格高达218美元。装配成本微乎其微——现在每部iPhone只要6.5美元。尽管xx智能手机的零部件还的差别很大，它们的总成本却常常被控制在170至180美元之间（见下图）。制造商们总是先制定预算，然后根据预算来选择他们所能制造的机器，拉斯韦勒说到。
Most smart-phones’ retail prices (before operator subsidies) are around $500-$600. Not all of the difference is profit. There are many other costs, such as research, design, marketing and patent fees, as well as the retailer’s own costs. But the big gap between the cost of building a smart-phone and its price in the shops should widen further as ever more previously discrete components are packed on to a single main microchip. Howard Curtis of UBM TechInsights predicts that as software and mobile services come to represent more of a smart-phone’s overall value, this too will widen the gap between manufacturing costs and selling prices.
大多数智能手机的零售价格（加上运营商补贴价格之前）都在500至600美元之间。并不是所有手机都有利可图。除了零售商自己的成本之外，还有其他的一些成本，比如说研发，设计，市场，以及外观设计的成本。但是只能手机的制造成本和其在零售店里的价格的差距将会越来越大，因为过去很多分立的不见现在都能集成到一张主要芯片上了。UBM TechInsights的霍华德-柯蒂斯认为，随着软件和运营商服务的价格在只能手机总价值中比例的增加，制造成本和零售价格的差异会越来越大。
What this gap demonstrates is that for smart-phones, like most other electronic devices, most of the value lies not in manufacturing but in all the services and intellectual property it takes to create and market such products. That is something for politicians to ponder: instead of making empty promises about saving ailing manufacturers they might instead consider how best to promote the growth of high-value service industries.
这种价格差表明，像其他一些电子产品一样，智能手机的价值只有很小的部分来源于制造商，大部分的价值来源于服务以及创造和销售这些产品的知识产权。这给政治家以启发：与其开空头支票给那些需要救助的制造商，不如考虑考虑如何促进高附加值的服务产业的发展。 |
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