c2,
<< If excluding QCOM was not a planned, concerted effort, then I'm the Tooth Fairy >>
Rejecting Qualcomm's strategic initiative to have a single converged standard based on Qualcomm narrowband cdma architecture as encapsulated in the "5-Points", and forcing capitulation on that issue was indeed the result of a "planned, concerted effort", on the part of European, Asian, and American vendors and carriers, first in 3GIG and then continuing on in 3GPP. There is absolutely no question about that.
Committee-based standards are by their nature designed to prevent any single company from gaining strategic control of the architecture of a platform and gain the competitive advantage that results, regardless of who holds IP rights to components of the overall architecture .or how those IP rights are applied (cross licensing, pooling, toll-collecting).
If this was simply a matter of achieving a revenue flow from IP we could all sit back, relax, clip coupons, and not worry about the degree of penetration cdma2000 is able to achieve in the wireless world relative to GSM/3GSM, since Qualcomm is paid on 3G3 in identical or at least similar fashion to the way it is paid for cdmaOne.
Qualcomm's bullet-proof IP platform prevailed justifying the faith that those of us who invested well ahead of the ERICY accord knew (thought? hoped?) it would.
I don't think that there is any doubt that Qualcomm has strategic control of the architecture of cdma2000, the cdma2000 standard, or the cdma 2000 platform. Qualcomm (with several key members of its value chain) just successfully withstood a "planned, concerted effort" on the part of Motorola, Nokia and others to diminish that control at least to some degree, in formulating the framework for 1xEV-DV.
The question now becomes to what degree cdma2000 can gain acceptance in the overall mobile wireless market.
IMO, the degree to which it does, directly affects the eventual valuation of our QCOM investment, irrespective of the fact that QCOM is paid for its essential cdma IP, which is a given, and has been a given for quite some time.
For some clue as to where Vodafone (which was what we were talking about) stands on the issue of open v. proprietary architecture and standards, please note that they are one of the 4 carriers (20 companies) that has recently founded the Open Mobile Architecture initiative.
OMA is just one more potential barrier to any one company, be it Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Cisco or Qualcomm or whomever, obtaining architectural control of a platform, or standard, whether that control be de facto or de jure, with the resulting competitive advantage.
The only work around to that now is market acceptance and technology adoption of (in this case) cdma2000.
Planned? You betcha. Strategically so.
Concerted? You betcha. Strategically so.
... so you are not the Tooth Fairy. <g>
As for ETSI, you might want to worry more about ITEA and whatever analogous initiatives that exist in Asia. Those initiatives related specifically to IT as it converges with wireless and are both "planned and concerted" efforts.
- Eric - |
