You're making a lot of sense, seems pretty clear Q is going to need other's intellectual property.
Looks like a big game of chicken to me. In the end however, both sides need eachother.But who has the most leverage? Not so clear
Q rolls out 1X HDR over next couple of years making 3G evolutionary issues somewhat moot for IS95. These upgrades will provide all the bandwidth anyone's going to need for the next little while. I don't believe royaly issues which you allude to pose any real problems in this regard but not certain. Q shows everyone else that "the future is NOW", just buy 1X-HDR.
Of course nobody is biting. OTOH, the royalty issues NEED to be resolved before anyone can "roll" anything out in the Brave new world known as (DS)WCDMA, and nobody is going to want to be sitting on unused spectrum after betting the ranch on it. Of course QCOM wants and needs new markets too.
Looks like grounds for compromise. But what will net royalty rates really be, what arrangements will be made?
The only thing I feel fairly certain of is that there won't be any global settlement. Q has said many times they won't join the patent pool. Regardless of what gets posted on these boards, you can be sure that Q and Ericsson have settled virtually all outstanding issues between them on these matters or there'd have been no agreement. Others like Nokia will follow in good time.
Will QCOM's share be diluted in WCDMA? Probably, but in what way and by how much? What will the total royaly rate be for someone who has no IPR. Perhaps like GSM the total royalty rate without cross license will be around 15%, maybe Q gets 33% of that, still 5% of the total, cross licensing not withstanding.
Perhaps Q will ink a few revenue neutral cross licensing agreements but so what? The pie that they'll be taking a piece of will be MUCH Much bigger. Is this bad for QCOM? It's easy to get into arguments on these boards that veer off into cyberspace, jousting back and forth, to what end?
DMG
PS..FWIW I don't agree with many Q loyalists who state over and oevr how Nokia is being stupid , WCDMA is terrible, this whole line. |
