It is clear that many of the largest high tech companies in the world appear to be supportive and ready to put their efforts forward towards making 802.11a/Hyperlan2 the global standard for truely high speed wireless communications. While this a major time consuming undertaking that requires the co-operation of many competitive forces, there is much to be gained for each of these players in this arena. While there are approximately 7 companies with claims to patents relating to this new emerging technology, it is my understanding that WIN holds the most important of these. If anyone can prove me wrong, please do so. It is therefore logical to conclude, as many of us have, that the royalty potential for WIN, should this technology be chosen and ran with, could be extremely significant if the players unanimously decide to honour WIN's patent(s) and pay them their due rewards.
In light of this, I have spent much time thinking about the odds of these players paying this currently small Canadian piper. Philips is a very mature, very knowledgable company. They are very diversified, powerful and have a very strong understanding of patents. They have had many, many patents themselves over the years including ones relating to OFDM. I understand they hold key patent(s) on C-OFDM. They chose to work with WIN, sign up to license their tech, thus forth honouring their IP, and be THE front runner in producing the ASIC's. Then this matter of fact OFDM Forum is created and led by WIN/Philips with many of the most highly regarding wireless companies in existance, to work together to commercialize the potential of 802.11a/Hyperlan2. This leads me to believe that it would seem unlikely that the other members who intend to use the tech would not honour the IP. It therefore seems to me that as the likelihood of this technology going mainstream increases, the odds of WIN someday hitting that $1,000 price as opposed to $0 also increases. It makes good sense to me anyway and I have a lot at stake here as I am holding more shares than I have since late 1999. Cheers!!! |
