<<guess it may be covered by the license agreement but surely QCOM doesn't get any share of the selling price of a laptop (or a car) just because you connect a cell phone to it.>>
"No. But they certainly would get a royalty if a 1x ev-do chip is embedded in the laptop."
"Yeah. Right . Like thats ever gonna happen."
"Well, Intel's putting the Centrino chip in its laptops. Is it really so hard to believe that there might be demand for a laptop with a seamlessly transitioning world-chip?"
"Qveau- you ignorant slut. Don't you know that Centrino offers wi-fi connectivity? Which everybody wants!!!!! Because robv said so!!!!!! And nobody would ever want a laptop that only gave you 2.4 megabit connection, even if you can still log in a city block or more away from Starbucks."
"I'm not a slut. I'm a guy.And anyway, why wouldn't they?"
"Again, because robv said so, you corn brain. And he even backed it up with a link to where he'd said it somewhere else too. What are you,blind? Or just stupid."
"Probably both. But look, why don't we stop focusing on the outgoing ripples by playing this silly little game of "Let's see who can come up with the most devices that won't pay QCOM a royalty" and instead focus on the incoming tide by recognizing a few basic facts."
1. We live in a world that would have sent Jorma Olilla to a padded cell had he been able to foresee it in 1993.
2. Mobility will thrive. And mobility will be overwhelmingly CDMA by the end of the decade.
3.QCOM's IP position in all variations of CDMA have been assailed around the world and found to be unassailable.
4.QCOM is the world's greatest repository of CDMA scientific knowledge and engineering talent. The guy in second place ain't even close.
5. There will never be a better CDMA asic in the market than the one put out by QCOM. The question is how close the next best competitor can come to the price, quality, and functionality of the QCOM offering.
That is the overarching reality, gentlemen. The subsuming reality. Excepting the valuation concerns , all the rest is just detritus and trivia.
Now look, I know you guys think QCOM management can't be believed about what they had for lunch, but for once cast those baleful eyes to Helsinki and tell me what you really see.
Nokia once said that CDMA was a scientific impossibility, and the street believed them. Nokia also said that there was no market-NADA-for CDMA, and the street believed them. Nokia then said that it had been working on CDMA since before QCOM, that it had developed in WCDMA the highest and best exponent of the technology for 3G applications, and the street believed them. Nokia then said that QCOM IP applied little,if any, to WCDMA, and the street believed them.Nokia also said that WCDMA would be ready for widespread commercial use in 2001, and the street believed them. Nokia then said it wouldn't waste any time or resources developing CDMA1x because there would be no demand for it, and the street believed them. And now Nokia has announced that it will join with TXN and ST Micro to dominate the market for cdma asics and handsets, creating frissons of excitement over at the robv lemonade stand, and guess what.....the street believes them.
You will pardon me if I don't lose sleep on this one.
QCOM has remade the wireless world according to its own vision. As it looks in from the outside,whatever scraps from the table Nokia can salvage for itself in this new world isn't really going to affect the banquet just beginning inside.
How the mighty have fallen. |
