Don: Perceptive and articulate as usual, but perhaps even more importantly you are pushing the envelop of understanding the strength of JDSU/SDLI. Now if only Mike would take a look (chuckle).
Would appreciate your turning your fine hand to this analysis of Qualcomm's core strength (from Q "Moderated"):
"To: Ramsey Su who started this subject
From: idler Friday, Aug 4, 2000 11:00 PM ET
Reply # of 1952
R. Vigilante on why Q is the Intel of wireless:
the following (from Gildertech thread), IMHO is a really excellent answer from George Gilder's colleague to the question why the expiration of Q's current core patents is really irrelevant to Q's future. Seems to me to put the analogy between Q in wireless and Intel in PC chips into clear focus:
< In this industry most of the relevant patents don't really expire, or rather they lose relevance
before they expire. The pace of innovation is so rapid that the patents are in effect constantly
being renewed because new and improved ones are being filed.
In any event my view is that the value of the "core" cdma patents to Q's future is greatly
exagerrated. It's not as if the day the core patents expire, everyone is all of a sudden a cdma
manufacturer. Cdma is really, really hard. The chips are extremely complex. One reason TDMA
was available first is that cdma pushes the limits of what dsps can do and always has. The
technology rides right at the limits if Moore's law. Q's real strength is that they keep improving
cdma with better, faster,more adept, more capacious chip designs, which of course are
themselves patented. But even if there were no patents, Q's expertise in CDMA, from coding
theory (Andrew Viterbi invented the crucial coding algorithims used in ALL digital wireless, not
just cdma) to chip design so outstrips anyone else's that they would still be the leading cdma
chip maker.
In short, cdma is not a recipe, it is a science and art, with a multitude of variables--one reason it
is so effective--the success of which is based on extremely aggressive signal processing that
represents one of the supreme intellectual and engineering triumphs of the age. Open source all
the patents and the guys at Q would still be the masters of the game.> "
Thanks again.
Cha2 |
