They’ve also produced a model under the Roland name too.

Sqk

They also produce keyboards for musicstore.com under the name Fame https://www.musicstore.com/en_OE/EUR/Fame-Stage-SP-4-Digitalpiano/art-KEY0004586-000

Yeah, but everyone uses a phone. Arranger keyboards are a niche product.

This company is ripping off Yamaha, producing a keyboard with absolutely no R&D. China is probably telling Yamaha that if they want to do business in their country that they're going to have to suck it up.

If a Japanese company spends millions of dollars on R&D for a line of products, and then a Chinese company rips it off and sells theirs for 1/3 the price, what's going to happen next?

In China they had a musical instruments expo like Namm, and there was a large booth featuring Martin guitars with advertisements featuring the Martin logo and dozens of guitars. But they weren't Martin guitars. They were Chinese rip-offs, and there's nothing the American Martin guitar company can do about it.

Didn’t you read Medeli have a license agreement with Yamaha? They don’t ripping off anybody.

Sure, NOW.
When I was a kid, NO ONE owned a phone. We had to rent one from Big Brother (Ma Bell).

Frans and Dave, good points.
Frans, I think that just because a licensing agreement exists doesn't mean that the Chinese government offers American companies an offer they can't refuse.
What if Medeli is abusing the licensing agreement when they made this knock off? What is the Chinese government going to do about it if Yamaha complains? Nothing, of course.

When I listened to the demo...I thought the drums sounded like older Roland sounds.
As far as competition for an SX900...don't think so!
Mitch

Yamaha isn’t going to do anything because Medeli is not operating outside their contract. Previous Medeli models looked like the PSR 2000 series. Medeli isn’t ripping off anything. Medeli has been around since the early 80’s. They’re not new to the game. They make keyboards for several companies too. They’re a legit company. Yamaha doesn’t play around either. If Medeli was ripping off Yamaha, that contract would end very fast, and Medeli would seriously suffer from the loss of using Yamaha’s older sounds.

Sqk

With this many people disagreeing with me, I'm probably uninformed.
The reason why just Yamaha and Korg have a semi monopoly on high end arrangers isn't because of unscrupulous tactics and government connections (Like Bell Labs). It's because they spend a shitload of money creating styles with musicians from all over the world and great audio engineering. Many companies can create and do create a keyboard with knobs, sliders, touchscreen, and great samples, but putting together hundreds of great styles must be why you don't see many companies competing with arrangers. The arranger thing becoming passe makes it more daunting.

I think Yamaha make a nice profit out of this. Now they can sell again with the help of Medeli their older sounds and styles.