royaltek and pretec

[Bubble]

are those the same company?

[Dave]

No, they are two difference companies. Pretec is based in California and RoyalTek in Taiwan.

[Bubble]

please look at following links:



http://www.devbuzz.com/mp/2485.asp



http://www.royaltek.com/proditem.asp?group=consumer&item=gpscfcard&filename=CFCard\rgp2202.asp&gifname=images/pg1gpscfcard.jpg



the pictures look the same to me and if i zoom in the pictures i think i can se pretec. but in pretecs homepage i cant find this one!



i think this is a mysterious!

[Dave]

There's no mystery to this, and they aren't the same company. In most lines of business, and especially in GPS, one company will create a product by putting alot of R&D and production services into the product, sell it themselves as their product, but also either license the production to another company to sell off, or still produce them theirselves and sell them on as OEM units to other manufacturers. Leadtek is a typical one here, they'll create a new GPS Receiver, sell them as OEM's to other companies for the first 3 months, then start selling the units themselves. Sometimes the outer case is changed, sometimes not. Haicom also do this. Other companies do this, like the Emtac/Socket/Transplant Bluetooth GPS Receiver, it's the same unit, just sold as OEM and re-badged.



The one thing to watch out for is sometimes you'll find one of the companies (usually OEM's), selling them a lot cheaper.

[Bubble]

whats R&D???



so a company sell a OEM product to another company and gets alot of money. later they will sell their own product and get alot of money?

why do theys do it this way? a method to earn more money?



i suppose these means that you can never be sure whos the original manufacture???? unless they dont tell you (transplant for example)

[Dave]

Sorry, R&D=Research and Development. Correct. The reason why they do this is they can't be everywhere, they're probably great in their own local market, but outside of these shores, they need to get their products out there. They can either look at setting up a distribution network, or they can sell their products as OEM. This brings them return on investment through R&D and helps bring in the extra money they're looking for, for the return on that product.



You are right, it is sometimes difficult to track back who is the original manufacturer or designer of the product.

[BBB]

Maybe it is something to do with: Hey this is great - buy it from us and we will not sell direct to consumer for another 3 months and when we do we'll sell it at x + 50% ?


Anyway - I fantasize

Next thing is: I have an idea, it may be good or it may be bad. I think it is a good idea but I am sorta biased. Anyway, I would not mention it otherwise :-)

What to do? Who to talk to? Have I to finance it myself?

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