Regarding RMBS as a gorilla. I still see it no different than QCOM, equating CDMA with RDRAM. The only difference is really perceptional. PLEASE BEAR WITH ME AS I KNOW THIS IS A STRONG STATEMENT.
First off QCOM owns the key enabling IP for a minority technology CDMA. RMBS owns the key enabling IP for a minority technology RDRAM. Here both companies are essentially the same.
What made the companies different is that RMBS actually had and still makes claims (as well as still collects from 1/2 of the industry) royalties on SDRAM and DDR. Which is directly comparable to GSM and other TDMA systems. Unlike QCOM RMBS potentially has key enabling IP over the entire relevant industry.
The legal defeat of RMBS, assuming it eventually results in RMBS unable to collect on SDRAM and DDR puts, RMBS back in the position of QCOM which only controls CDMA. Both companies controlling the likely dominant standard going forward into the future, but not holding IP and collecting royalties on the competing standards.
However, it is likely that RDRAM will become the majority technology in the market by sometime in 2003 (not a certainty, but many sources have predicted RDRAM achieving 60%+ market share by 2003). This is in contrast to the wireless market where it is very doubtful that CDMA will become the dominant standard within the next few years. It might take the latter part of the decade for this to occur.
This is why I think the gorilla story between RMBS and QCOM are actually quite similar and any difference is really a perceptual difference at the moment.
If you look at the technology CDMA is eventually a no-brainer. You simply seem to have to go that way as 3G rolls out. Similarly, as processors hit 2Ghz, and as 2 Ghz hits the mainstream markets (2 Ghz hitting the markets in Q3 of this year, probably as a mid-level solution by Q3 2002), RDRAM is eventually the no-brainer solution as well in comparison to other competing technologies. Because like CDMA there really is not a technology that can really compete as these performance demands become mainstream.
I know this may prove to be a controversial opinion, but if QCOM can be an IP gorilla of CDMA, RMBS is the IP gorilla of RDRAM. QCOM's control of CDMA is not any stronger than RMBS' control of RDRAM. But RMBS also has tremendou upside if it is able to successfully prosecute its IP on SDRAM and DDR (so far 0-1 there). But this loss merely puts QCOM and RMBS back to even, each controlling a key future technology which is currently only a minority of the market.
This is my case for why RMBS as not a gorilla is a perceptual and not a market situation.
Tinker
P.S. Brookdale linked to SDRAM certainly was unexpected, but not a long-term threat to RDRAM. SDRAM will give way to either DDR and RDRAM. It simply cannot keep up. Next year 1.7 Ghz will be mainstream. Moore's law pushes on. DDR is the only other mainstream alternative out there. Brookdale does not change this. |
