Eric, more "elaboration" on the race to 3G. Rembering NOKIA chose IDCC to assist in its 3G development, this post by Learning2Vest on Jim Lurgio's Club shares his prior experience and has some direct relevance on the race:
"Some thoughts on what is very likely going on with IDCC's chip agreements as we wait for announcements to begin. In the late 60's I worked in a semiconductor development and manufacturing facility of a large electronics company. Lots of timing relationships between what was "production ready" and much better stuff still being developed/tested/integrated into designs were very interesting to watch.
Product engineering wanted to keep developing and improving while Marketing was screaming for whatever was available to be announced so they could respond to competition. Never did find out exactly how somebody finally decided it was time to "lock down and deliver" a product to the market. Did learn a lot about how much more profitable it is to take the time to get things right in a design before announcing it versus yielding to market timing pressures and then having to introduce a bunch of "improvements" every few months trying to get it right.
That's the idea behind Nokia's statement that they plan "to be first to margin, if not first to market" IMO. Lots of things can get done before a chip deal needs to be made public. Several companies may be delivering IDCC 3G SOC prototypes for testing already. Until final contract terms of function, reliability, power consumption and cost are met, there is no completed agreement to announce. These devices are pushing the technology envelope out in all directions with the functions needing to be integrated in their desogn. New companies and new approcaches are joining the race to get it done right every day. But when all that finally clicks into place, IDCC's cash register should start ringing up big time revenues for royalties, engineering services and chip sales right away. In fact, it would not surprise me to see IDCC's chip deals be announced at the same time Nokia's new 3G products they are installed in get announced.
Here's an excerpt from Intel which gives a bit of an insight to the activity going on in 3G chip development deep behind the scenes today. The bolded portion says it best IMO;
"Fairly recently, Intel became interested in the entire communications space. With its Intel Communications Fund, it has invested across a broad range of networking and communication product solutions. In terms of the wireless space, the company sees there are ways in which it can contribute to the evolution of next generation wireless services. Wireless falls into the company's Intel Personal Internet Client architecture and Xscale Microarchitecture investment areas.
"As there is a transition from 2G to the next generation, we see the market moving toward areas that are Intel's strengths," said an Intel spokesman. "This is an opportunity to add our expertise. The goal for all of us is to address the next-generation wireless client. This is a race to 3G, and the rules have changed. Companies that had dominated the voice market won't be the ones dominating the next generation." |
