Eric. L.- You simply don't get it. I don't give a rat's ass how much he knows about definable high level and low level operating systems. The fact that he is so knowledgeable makes the article I was responding to even more deserving of ridicule. Your collective postings here illustrate a genuine scorn for the non-technologically trained layman,a view that the only "useful" contributor is one who holds an E.E. degree from MIT. Well, those contributions are valuable, but this isn't a technological journal, its an investment thread. And yes, its true, that I've been "generally right" on a number of things on which all your technical wizardry combined with YOUR biases led you to be dead wrong.
So here I am posting on a freakin' SI thread and my posts routinely send you into apoplexy. And then we have the world's premiere expert in definable high level and low level operating systems taking up space in an internationally distributed publication where he says things like this, and you apparently revere him.
<<Those of us who like to view the Qualcomm story as a parable of American isolationism and bull-headed stupidity - and that's a narrative Qualcomm executives and their creepy, militia fringe supporters (including Qualcomm sock-puppet Stewart Alsop) have done little to discourage in recent years...>>
So humor the resident thread moron, if you deign.Do you believe that "bull-headed stupidity" has been a "narrative" for QCOM management. I know you do for we "creepy, militia fring supporters", but I would challenge you to find anything I've written that is as creepy and wrong -headed as the columns I posted to this thread last night.
Then the world's expert on definable high level and low level operating systems uncovers the startling revelation that QCOM has "...quietly and carefully positioned itself to win whichever standard becomes ascendant". "Scuse me? Quietly? They've long announced their intention to gain 50% of the WCDMA chipset market. They have routinely issued press releases concerning their WCDMA progess.
He next gloats over the fact that QCOM's results, impressive though they are, still don't change the fact that CDMA shipments are but a "drop in the bucket" compared to GSM phone shipments and concludes:
<<So you can see how economies of scale desperately handicap Qualcomm.>>
Gee. I look at the results of the last six quarters, and "desperately handicapped" isn't the impression I, or any other rational person, would get. Do you think QCOM is "desperately handicapped" by economies of scale? And to whatever extent this fabless producer whose biggest problem is finding sufficient capacity to meet the demand for its products is handicapped by economies of scale, does it bear any relation to physical reality to say that they are "desperately" handicapped. Is such a comment "useful' for any purpose other than revealing Mr. Orlowski's own abundant prejudices?
And then our world's leading expert and part-time sleuth uncovers the scandal of the century. One even worse than Ralph Nader taking money from Republicans.
<<But although it talks tough, it's actually been stealth-selling systems based on the WCDMA alternative that it so vehemently disparages. The WCDMA licensees must actually pay a royalty to Qualcomm, so in a way it can't really lose.>>
Stealth-selling? And did you know that WCDMA licensees must pay a royalty to QCOM? So that QCOM wins either way? Not if our world's leading expert had been your sole source of information, since back in 2002 he advised his readers that QCOM would receive a "much smaller royalty" for WCDMA. And contrary to what he now thinks is his new discovery, he parenthetically noted way back in 2002 that "QCOM also markets WCDMA"
<<Four years ago Qualcomm executives boasted that CDMA would have the largest share of the 2G phone business. When the world went GSM, they then promised that the world would run Qualcomm's cdma2000 3G standard. But Europe and Asia have already plumped for WCDMA in volume, which gives Qualcomm a much smaller royalty. (Qualcomm also markets WCDMA)>>
I'm not a World's leading Expert, I'm just a resident thread moron, but back in 2002 I expressed the view that QCOM would receive the same royalty for WCDMA. I was right. he was wrong. And since we have such disdain for "generally right", does his comment that QCOM has "vehemently disparaged" WCDMA rise even to that woefully low standard? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that QCOM has pointed out some unpleasant realities about WCDMA, and accurately predicted how long it would take to overcome them, and thus in the process comitted the unpardonable sin of pricking a few European egos? Have you ever seen any IT journalist more consistently "vehemently disparage" a company to the degree that Orlowski does QCOM?
You seeemed most offended by my repeated use of the word "horseshit", which i assure you is not one of my favorites. it was nonetheless "useful" in my reply to the World's Leading Expert because it was the word he chose to describe QCOM's commentary on WCDMA.
<<Some years ago, Qualcomm mulled, but rejected an ARM-like licensing model in which it would position itself as the CDMA expert to all the world's 3G carriers, and open the chipset business to encourage multiple suppliers. That was rejected and it chose instead to market its own partisan flavor of CDMA as the sole supplier (of this CDMA2000 standard), and pour a relentless marketing barrage of horseshit on the WCDMA alternative.>>
Another point about this passage is his galacticly stupid, or intentionally misleading explanation of QCOM's SPINCO strategy, which was simply a way of forcing the last holdouts to come on board and sign a "same royalty for any flavor" licensing agreement. It worked and the rationale for SPINCO went away.
From his "horseshit passage" he then concludes:
<< Unfortunately that left Qualcomm as the only supplier of its own CDMA flavor of chipsets. As a result the Qualcomm-CDMA industry moves at a glacial pace, and no market endures a single-supplier monopolist for very long.>>
So Eric, is glacial the world you would choose to describe the pace of things at Qualcomm, or the CDMA industry? Is that even "generally right"?
And then we learn that things are actually so bad at Qualcomm that:
<<Several anguished QCOM shareholders are quite aware of this and have been muttering to us about "class action" for some time, reasonably reckoning that Qualcomm could take a much smaller share of a much bigger market, rather than a vast share of a tiny market, and be rather better off.>>
Class Action? Against this company? To attack a strategy that has positioned this company, as he points out just a few paragraphs above, "to win whichever standard becomes ascendant"? guys, I don't get out much, and even if i did I'm just a resident thread moron, but I never heard or read a thing about a class action over SPINCO. Did you , Eric? Is this even generally right?
Then we get to this zinger of a final paragraph:
<<We surmise that Qualcomm has wisely recognized this, and is bending quite pragmatically to satisfy all comers. Which is good news: the company pioneered CDMA and deserves to reap the reward. The only trouble is the anti-WCDMA marketing now looks distinctly hypocritical. And the company has to lure those militia rednecks who have formed the mainstay of its propaganda efforts in recent years down from their caves.>>
Tell me, Eric L. What's more hypocritical? QCOM telling the truth about WCDMA while announcing all along its intent to sell into the market when it finally gets here? Or Jorma Olilla dedicating itself to the development of a full line of CDMA chips while telling Bill Gates that ev-do is a fraud. As for the "militia redneck" stuff, i don't know but i suspect Mr. Orlowski would feel alot more home in Paris than London, exhibiting as he has in these articles so many of his french qualities.
In another column he wrote, he claims "Qualcomm has admitted to false accounting practices", citing the Schilit report. However much of an expert Orlowski may be on definable high level and low level operating systems, if we needed any more proof(and we didn't) that he's just a bitter, hopelessly , one might even say vehemently, biased windbag of falsehoods and half-truths, this gives it to us.
So, lets tie this up by repeating a few direct and precise questions to you, Eric.
1. Do you believe QCOM management has been a narrative for bull-headed stupidity?
2. Do you believe that economies of scale are desperately handicapping Qualcomm?
3. Do you believe that QCOM management has "vehemently disparaged" WCDMA?
3A. When Olilla told Gates that ev-do was a fraud, was that disparaging? Was it true?
4. Do you believe that QCOM abandoned SPINCO just so it could "market its own partisan flavor of CDMA as the sole supplier (of this CDMA2000 standard), and pour a relentless marketing barrage of horseshit on the WCDMA alternative?"
5. Can you imagine any lawsuit more frivolous than a class action against QCOM based on its SPINCO strategy?
6. Is "glacial" the word you would use to describe developments at QCOM, or the CDMA field?
6. How big of an idiot does Orlowski have to be to think that QCOM was actually "mulling" going through with SPINCO as opposed to using it as a tool to force the last IP holdouts to drop their ill-founded challenges to QCOM patents?
7. And how big (or perhaps I should say biased) of an over-educated idiot do you have to be to defend Orlowski's unrelenting billingsgate by pointing to his expertise in high level and low level operating systems,which, as I note above, is no defense, but in fact a further indictment of his writing? |
