| Roadie, I must admit you have me confused by your comments about this most severe and (over)broad injunctive order and punitive royalty scheme. We have "two years" to do what? Have you noticed how many opportunities Qualcomm has been given to offer comment? Sure, it was New Year's Eve, and the end of holiday vacations, but Broadcom was able to get their PR and statements to the press out so that they could shape global and market perceptions.Qualcomm has (in recent history) responded quickly. Not this time. They seem to be, and may in fact be, utterly speechless.Perhaps there is no way to counterspin this mess, short of the disaster it appears to be. Although the sale of offending products may be confined to the U.S., other crucial aspects of development, testing, technical support, and marketing appear to be affected globally. Infineon, NXP, EMP, TI, and the rest of the Qualcomm licensed chip universe may have been just gifted Qualcomm's WCDMA chipset business. And forget potential new business, such as Apple, which can't even be solicited. What do you think Qualcomm will do at CES this year? A time of exciting announcements of products and new ventures will instead be an endless stream of negative headlines, comments from the sidelines about the fallout from this loss, and downgrades by duly frightened analysts. Ed Snyder just had the best New Year of his life, along with Nokia, and the den of thieves in Irvine. Qualcomm gets to sell some legacy EV-DO products for one more year, while paying exorbitant royalties. Care to predict how earnings will be affected? And yet, San Diego is speechless. I assume a team of hungover lawyers are at work this minute, preparing yet another brief in support of an application for emergency stay. It can't come fast enough to save CES, and perhaps Qualcomm's market position.That's why Broadcom jumped at Selna's gift of no new trial in exchange for a waiver of willfulness. They got on with the nuclear weaponry, the injunction. And still, Qualcomm is speechless. |
