Clark,
Software UI is a very big deal, especially when working with Japanese companies. To system manufactures, unique UI and features are their primary ways to differentiate from others. I have never seen the Qualcomm software to say how customizable it is. But from using the Thin phone, I can say that it's pretty buggy. Some of these bugs are big and some are just UI related, but for an OEM who wants to make a flawless product, the Thin Phone will not get out the door. And for the Japanese market, reputation is very important. No manufacture will ever want to ship a buggy product.
Let me give you an example. My company made a reference design of an electronic device for a Japanese company. Their engineers spent two days doing nothing but pressing the front panel buttons and the remote key pad randomly. They came back and told us that the system locked up once, and requested us to fix the bug. To them, a consumer electronic device should become unusable and requiring an AC reset. A phone is not any different from a VCR or stereo in this aspect.
At this point, Q has a big technical lead in CDMA, and for many phone manufactures, there is no alternative. But once the LSIs, Intels, and Phlips catch up, customization will become a bigger issue. Even though Q collects royalty on the LSI chips, this doesn't mean that Q should be happy loosing ASIC business. If Q wants to dominant the ASIC market, it will have offer a robust and flexible software platform. Q should never be arrogant because it invented CDMA.
Regards,
Khan |
