Jim - **OT** - Do you work for Qualcomm? It is typical for them to jump instantly on anyone who ever says anything negative about the company (reminds me of EST or Scientology).
I apologize if it came across as jumping on you. That was not the intent in the slightest. But I am curious. What executives said what? This is not meant to be confrontational. But let me speculate: I suspect that the executives were all Ericsson (if any were not I would really appreciate knowing about it), and given that:
1) They are currently in dispute with Qualcomm over IPR I would be stunned if they said anything different. But that doesn't mean that it is anything more than a tactic.
2) While both Qualcomm and Ericsson have engaged in hyperbole (Qualcomm says 20x AMPS capacity and as recently as 3 years ago Ericsson was saying that CDMAOne would never work at all, but now they claim to have much of the IPR.), I think Qualcomm tends to be somewhat more of the straight shooter. Ericsson is famous for releases which are strictly speaking true, but imply something which is false. For instance they appear to have been diseminating the line 'Qualcomm's IPR is for narrowband' which is true, but implies that it is not necessary for wideband. However, the fact is the patents say nothing about bandwidth.
Having said all of that, if Ericsson is able to work around Qualcomm IPR, more power to them. And, even if they manage to get a better deal by their misleading statements, more power to them. (All's fair in love and war) But I have to say I am rooting for Qualcomm if only because they succeeded in the face of pretty horrific criticism from Ericsson and I don't really like Ericsson's tactics even though in a sense I admit that they are a reasonable policy (sort of the same way I feel about Microsoft - not to start another war<g>).
Finally, by way of closing, it is somewhat of a mystery to me why the Qualcomm/Ericsson debate is so strong. There are very few neutrals. I think it is related to the fact that many people believe it is wrong to have blocking IPR, and that IP is really just communal property.
Clark
PS For those interested in VLSI <g>, I wouldn't worry too much about this religious war. At the absolute worst Ericsson will sideline themselves like Motorola did when they ignored digital (and they are still here!!), but I think this extremely unlikely. (Or on the other side, CDMAOne disappears off the face of the earth as WCDMA takes over - but since CDMA contributes little or nothing to revenues at this point, who cares?) I would be surprised if a compromise wasn't reached sometime before the end of the year (the deadline for UMTS 3g standards), and if WCDMA weren't modified at least somewhat to make it more similar to CDMAOne. Since VLSI is already making CDMAOne chips this is all to the good for VLSI. |
