Tero:
Some simple questions. Please explain succinctly the technological benefit of Ericsson's "higher chip rate". No hype please, just a concise, specific discussion.
It's easy to pontificate that Qualcomm is being unfairly obtrusive, but please explain how worldwide telecom operators benefit from a bifurcated standard that is not compatible with the existing IS-95 installed base. You claim that QC has an "aggressive, hostile attitude", so I presume that you believe the company should just hand over its intellectual property because what--it is nice to help out our friendly Swedish neighbors? Gee, I wish I had been raised in a nice socialist country so I could be an extra good person too!!
Nokia, Motorola and just about every telecom company other than Ericsson purchased an IS-95 license--so your argument that Qualcomm extorted excessive licensing demands is clearly and empirically invalid. All these licensees understood that Qualcomm intended to manufacture handsets and produce ASICs. Nokia and Motorola felt it was in their strategic best interest to produce chipsets in-house and both suffered a time-to-market disadvantage as a result. That's business.
You attempt to portray this W-CDMA debate as Qualcomm versus the world. What cow poo-poo! It is really Europe versus North America with a sideshow in Asia. You consistently fail to address how the Europeans erected an IPR fortress around GSM that has basically precuded direct participation by the Japanese. You fail to note that DDI and IDO are deploying IS-95 now, while DoCoMo is still evaluating "test beds". Gee, it's taken Motorola over two years to get its handset to work, I wonder how long it will take Ericsson to commercialize W-CDMA. Isn't it talking about 2002-2003? European operators should, of course, sit with their fingers up their rumps until Ericsson delivers equipment rather than deploying IS-95 today and upgrading to IS-95C by 2000. Sure, that makes sense. But, of course, Qualcomm is a greedy monopolistic company and Ericsson is a philanthropic concern. Uh huh.
As I have said repeatedly, Qualcomm's IPR is necessary for mobile CDMA regardless of whether or not we are talking about IS-95 or W-CDMA. Qualcomm will realize a royalty stream under either circumstance, and can certainly build and deploy equipment compliant with any W-CDMA standard developed by Ericsson. Why do you choose to ignore this? Is it the same reason you choose to ignore cdmaOne's growth in the Americas? Maybe you fail to understand that the U.S. and Japan are currently the two largest cellular markets in the world.
You keep trying to present W-CDMA as a lose-lose for Qualcomm rather than a win-win. You are mistaken. IS-95 is continuing to expand globally while TDMA-based GSM will begin to go the way of the Dodo circa 2002-2003, and even if ERICY's W-CDMA standard gets adopted wholesale, Qualcomm's market opportunity would be GREATLY EXPANDED NOT REDUCED. QC will get W-CDMA royalties and IS-95 royalties and it will be able to compete for cellular business worldwide (even in fortress Europe). Ericsson is trying to make it as difficult as possible for Qualcomm to compete, but there will be no way for your Swedish compatriots to keep the camel's nose out of their tent.
Best regards,
Gregg |
