<Huawei is likely to be a major disruptive players in comms but they recognize that CDMA2000 is quickly becoming toast, and its impossible to assess the value of their UMTS focused JV with Moto at this stage.>
EricL, thanks for your extensive post [and posts].
There seems to be a funereal dirge looming over CDMA2000, which is where QCOM's alleged monopoly is supposed to stand. QCOM certainly doesn't have a monopoly in W-CDMA, with small market share in ASICs and is charging an absurdly low 5% for their intellectual property. So, QCOM is supposedly both dead and running a massive abusive monopoly simultaneously. Which is a good trick.
When one considers market capitalisation, we can see just how big the supposed monopoly is. It's pathetic. QCOM is smaller than just one participant, Nokia, let alone the swarm of others, combined or individually.
But back to my point, and the CDMA2000 vs W-CDMA/GSM toast competition. We should remember that it was "GSM is toast" not "W-CDMA is toast". W-CDMA was never more than a long-delayed vapour-wear technology and royalties are being paid [contrary to King Ericy's naked claim to be the proprietor of CDMA, inventing it in the 1880s and the slimy hagfish guild's lies and machinations].
TD-SCDMA is supposed to be China's equivalent of the back to front and inside out special Japanese cellphone technology designed to protect Japanese markets rather than enable wireless communication. But it's having trouble.
China already has a significant commitment to CDMA2000 and Huawei is of course perfectly capable of producing a LOT of CDMA2000 and outdoing Nokia and co in that business. Nokia has already given up on CDMA2000 [or so they say anyway] having failed to succeed, with Motorola delighted [as are others] that Nokia has capitulated. It's funny that Nokia failing on CDMA2000 is seen as being bad for QCOM.
On the contrary, Nokia was not an enthusiastic buyer of QCOM ASICs and was an ASIC competitor. It's usually good when competitors die. I quite liked it when my oil competitors were shown to have feet of clay.
Nokia, Ericsson and others are doing well in W-CDMA and might even give Huawei a run for their money, or do them in, on W-CDMA. They also enjoy a large market share in China subscriber devices.
Maybe China should ditch TD-SCDMA, go gung ho with CDMA2000 as the "Chinese" standard. It would be aligning themselves with those arch-villains the Americans, who bombed the Chinese embassy and is giving them grief over Taiwan and threatening them with war if China tries to take over Taiwan and hassling them over currency values and whatnot. But it would mean selling loads of CDMA2000 devices to the USA, which is a good thing to do. It would keep Nokia out of China. Another good thing to do. It would keep Ericsson out of China too. Another good thing.
In fact, China would totally dominate the standard. Korea and Japan are using it, so roaming in that regard would be easy. Maybe India would like to join with China in an Axis of CDMA and ditch that W-CDMA stuff altogether and dominate mobile cyberspace, in numbers, if not geographically.
China should remember that it wasn't the USA which colonized China. It was the Europeans. If China rules CDMA2000, it will help negotiations over Taiwan, not hinder them. The USA wouldn't have anything to lose if the evil-doing slimey GSM Guild takes over China with W-CDMA and pays no royalties.
Odd though it might seem at first glance, China and the USA have more in common than they realize.
QCOM has already given China low royalties for in-house use of CDMA2000. Huawei should promote to the Chinese government [as should Unicom] that CDMA2000 be made the official Chinese cyberphone technology.
China could back Au and beat D'oh!CoMo with cheap CDMA2000 gadgets.
Australia's Telstra is stupidly ditching their CDMA2000 [which I still doubt will happen though it seems set to happen]. After another year of competition, they might change their mind. The boss seems to have come up with the shift to W-CDMA as a good idea. I have always thought managers are the bane of corporate life because however things are, they think they need to change it to make it better. After a while, things change back again, when the new new manager shows up and explains why the previous managers had it wrong.
They don't seem interested in "Good show chaps. Things seem to be going along okay. Steady as you go." They live by the philosophy, "Wherever we are, we need to be somewhere else", and "Don't just stand there, do something", on the basis that action is necessary, and they need to make things happen. Admittedly I always find that things are not good and we need to do something else, but I'm talking frenzied activity for the sake of frenzied activity [so it seems to me anyway - maybe there are good reasons to ditch CDMA2000 in Telstra, though I haven't heard them so far].
Which isn't to say that I agree it's game over for CDMA2000. Of course CDMA2000 is losing market share rapidly to W-CDMA which has finally also reached a reasonable growth rate and is obviously going to replace most of the GSM world's TDMA devices. One can lose market share and still enjoy very rapid growth.
Now, TD-SCDMA, that's something which could be ditched.
Mqurice |
