Okay, I admit you didn't actually write that the Iridigm and Flarion buys were bad and that some expected income [or protection of income] had to be calculated to make the purchase price worhwhile, which is obviously what Qualcomm did and they were probably right.
Judging by the pounding Qualcomm got from Broadcom, the Flarion purchase was a great bargain. Imagine if Broadcom nabbed Flarion's intellectual property. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Similarly, Iridigm, while still problematic as mirasol, could turn out to be phenomenally successful.
Regarding royalties, I'm the original proponent [and still am] of making things really cheap to start with in some circumstances such as Globalstar minutes/megabytes.
The reason CDMA was not adopted more quickly was nothing to do with royalty rates. It was all to do with political protection, technological success, economies of scale and time to market [GSM having a big lead meant it was going to take more than a bit of a discount in a derisory royalty to encourage adoption].
If the CDMA royalty rate was 0% [which it was for the early licensees] it wouldn't have encouraged faster adoption.
The royalty rate on W-CDMA is 12% compared with 2% on CDMA for Nokia and 5% for others, but W-CDMA is running away with the market. So a cheaper royalty would have had little to no effect.
Keep in mind too that the lower royalty would not have been translated into lower prices to subscribers. The price of spectrum was determined by the royalty rate. Being a low royalty rate meant there was a lot more profit to be nabbed which meant service providers bid spectrum up to $100 billion levels. If the royalty rate had really put the bite on the cost structure, spectrum bids would have been lower by the same amount.
Unfortunately, the way the FRAND agreements worked was a ring-fenced, price-fixing cartel so royalties couldn't be increased for later licensees or they could reasonably sue for the ND part of the agreement. ND = non-discriminatory.
It would have been better to tell the GSM Guild to go to Hell and that they were not allowed to use CDMA in their swindling ring-fencing price-fixing cartel's standard. Tell them they could use CDMA2000 or invent something themselves.
The GSM cartel kept CDMA as a niche technology [from a world-wide perspective] for a whole extra decade.
The peer reviewed piles of snow across the northern hemisphere show that CO2 has not caused the supposed warming: < the latest research articles from Science show that the adverse impacts of CO2, now and in the near future, are MUCH WORSE than had been estimated earlier. > It's a 112 year record. That means that it's over 100 years since it was so cold and snowy.
What CO2 has to do with the discussion is a demonstration of ways of thinking. < If you can provide a better, more unbiased scientific basis for your views, then go ahead and do it. > The best science is facts and reason not official pronouncements by those with a hand in the till and a barrow to push.
You put great store on official thinking. Peer reviewed and all that. Peer review said that CDMA breached the laws of physics. I prefer thinking for myself.
It wasn't really putting words in your mouth, or in your fingers, so to speak. <Art appears to have been opposed, even in hindsight. > It was more a conclusion from what you wrote, posted to you so you would easily find it and correct it if incorrect. So you were in favour of the Flarion and Iridium buys. [Okay, I know, you didn't actually write that either. Right, we'll go with the third option, you are still on the fence.]
We have a pretty good debating and information zone here to help evaluate our personal shareholdings and what the company might do, but I don't think it's a suitable place from which to launch bids for Board representation, fun though that might be. We have no means of knowing who has what shares. It would make more sense to get an email agreed with lots of signatories.
Perhaps the company keeps an eye on SI proceedings and reports back on anything they read which should be fed into company thinking on topics. I'm not aware of any better cyberspace resource they can keep an eye on.
Regarding dividends, I'm with you on increasing the dividend. I'd like to see a one-off special $8 billion dividend. If somebody upped that to $16 billion, I'd agree with that too. With interest rates as low as they are, we might as well borrow some of it and it would soon be paid off.
Mqurice |
