Chosun reports that some Korean electronics companies are grumbling about Apple's flash memory deal with Samsung.

The domestic MP3 player industry is sulking, saying the iPod nano owes its exceptionally low price to Samsung Electronics...

But Samsung Electronics executive Joo Woo-sik defends the company. "I can’t tell you the discount rate, but it stands to reason that we expand the range of discount rates for a big buyer like Apple," he said. "Samsung didn’t mean to do any harm to domestic MP3 manufacturers."

But they are unhappy. Reincom spokesman Kim Dong-hwan said, "We can hardly declare a price war with Apple. We’ll counter Apple’s challenge by releasing new concept products."

Ah, irony.