How many times does Gilder have to tell you that QCOM receives less under WCDMA than under CDMA2000?
Well, once would be enough. I hadn't heard that he said that. But if he has and Qualcomm has said they will charge the same royalty for WCDMA, CDMA2000 and IS-95 then I would have to believe Qualcomm since they obviously have the right to ask any amount for their property, others can take it or leave it. Obviously Qualcomm wants them to take it so they will charge a reasonable figure like they have done with CDMAOne. Yes, others whine about it as they pay it but I understand it is about 1/3 the amount that the GSM IPR holders collectively charge for GSM.
Why do you think Gilder has the ability to say how much Qualcomm charges? At least you should tell us what his reasoning is for making this claim which conflicts with published statements made by Irwin Jacobs.
And how many times do we have to tell you that, obviously, QCOM has no chance of participating in the GSM part of the GSM-WCDMA or the GSM-CDMA air-interface chipset business.
I don't remember you mentioning that before. Anyway, why do you think this is so obvious? It obviously isn't obvious to I. Jacobs who has said if carriers want a WCDMA solution Qualcomm will offer a solution. Why would Qualcomm be shopping for a partner with a GSM license if they didn't have a chance of succeeding? Irwin Jacobs has a long history of succeeding in many diverse businesses. There was Linkabit back in the early '80s, a satellite business that he built from the ground up and sold for a huge profit a few years later, Omnitracs, the trucking communications solution that has healthy profits, Eudora e-mail software that has a healthy market share even though it competes directly with MSFT, and of course Qualcomm's wireless solutions. So I have little doubt that Irwin can provide competitive W-CDMA chips. Why do you feel it is obvious they can't?
IDC has a legitimate shot at that plus whatever it can defend in WCDMA.
I agree. That doesn't mean IDC has a favorable risk/reward ratio.
Fixed wireless is yet another area of opportunity for IDC which was already working on broadband CDMA while QCOM was working on narrowband CDMA.
It's true that IDC was working on broadband CDMA when Q was working on IS-95 but don't assume Qualcomm that they were neglecting wideband. You should keep in mind that Irwin is a true visionary who has always looked years forward and is well aware of the advantages CDMA has in a broader spectrum but designed IS-95 to fit in current spectrum bands and specifically designed their patents so they would not be bandwidth specific. What many IDC shareholders don't seem to grasp is that Qualcomm's patents are not bandwidth specific regardless of the cliche expressions that IDC'ers often cite like "True, Qualcomm has narrowband locked up but IDC has broadband.
Who has control over the upgrade path, Bux?
The GSM/TDMA carriers and manufacturers with 85-90% market share or Qualcomm which only has 10-15%? Is this hard for you to understand?
I don't deny it's possible that most GSM carriers will upgrade to WCDMA but it also wouldn't surprise me if WCDMA turns out to be too expensive or has too much controversial IPR or isn't ready on time. We still haven't seen any advantages over CDMA2000 that WCDMA offers demonstrated but time will tell on this one. I don't think CDMA2000 has been demonstrated either so we will know more when the standards are firmed up and demonstrated.
I'm glad you decided to discuss some of the issues I raised.
Bux
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