An article in the New York Times (September 9,2012) claims that Apple has cut orders for memory chips sourced from its long time supplier, Samsung. Current patent disputes regarding the similarity of Samsung’s phone and the iphone have caused friction between the companies. But Samsung has also been a long time reliable chip supplier to Apple and scaled to meet rising iphone sales. Will this supply response hurt the reliability of Apple’s supply base ? Or is Samsung the loser because it can no longer access Apple’s design demands which would help develop its manufacturing prowess for use in its own phones?