But what about disagreements? Any left?
Agree with you on Korea. Of course the Musketeers are already promising that if Korea picks their flavor why the royalties will just become invisible to the naked eye.
It's pretty obvious that the not-quite-yet ready for prime time crowd will do whatever it takes to maintain and expand their installed base - including de facto price cuts. All in all, they've been pretty effective over the years greasing the carriers and political and standards bodies. Ericsson's been working those angles at least since 1890!
And now NTT DoCoMo has joined the merry band for at least this dance, with apparently lots of cash to buy into other carriers' technology selection decisions around the world.
So merely having the world's best, or first working, gravitron spin reverser won't necessarily carry the day. So, I'll stick to the 30% best-case 3G share for MC. [30% MC share for 3G = QCOM screaming buy at today's prices].
Still looking for any GSM or TDMA carrier likely to make the first switch to MC-CDMA. Brazil maybe? Got any ideas?
Given that wireless is now pretty much geopolitically established (in terms of there just not being a whole lot of untapped geography that terrestrial wireless can serve), to get better than 30%, Q needs some carriers to switch. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of room for new carriers - in fact consolidation is the order of the day.
This general fact of business life benefits incumbents.
Situations like (hopefully) DDI gaining share from DoCoMo, in countries with multiple carriers on different standards, can add that push to get from 20% to 30% share.
But there is some vulnerability to QCOM from IS-95 carriers potentially making the switch to DS, regardless of how illogical from a cost standpoint that seems to us.
Remember, the evil gang will stop at nothing to get this to happen. Particularly keep in mind the Japanese mindset, now that DoCoMo claims to be the true inventor of WCDMA, of literally buying your way into markets to establish permanent shares. At their interest rates, the present value of money means a lot less than to us.
So, I will further agree with many of your past rants that the world of international business is filled with all manner of scheming, conniving, conspiratorial, etc. players motivated by the basest instincts - that root of all evil.
Unforunately for the white-hats, the bad guys have lots of money and lots of clout, that counterbalance their "good enough products" and possible lateness to market.
Alas, in the real world, the good guys, or those first to market, don't always win. Thus my admonition to temper the vicarious thrill of sitting in the audience rooting for the good guys in this fascinating global power drama with some common sense in looking at investment values.
Remember, even in the movies, the good guys take some hits.
And the bad guy usually shows up again in the sequel.
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P.S. Selling the ASIC division guts the heart and soul from the company. This is a whole lot different from infrastructure, handsets, Globalstar gateways, etc. which weren't/aren't core competencies and the core competitive advantage. I don't want to see Q end up like IDCC has operated through most of its recent history. And I don't think the Q's San Jose crew trying to figure out DS ASIC's has any significant value to anybody but the Q. So, there's a few more disagreements to smoke in your pipe!
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