Hi, Mardy - A couple of years ago, when I first got into Wi-LAN, I remember posting on the company's credibility: the fact that they had done everything they said they would do.
Looking at the history prior to last year, it is difficult to conceive that Wi-LAN would suddenly have turned into a company whose aim was to hype investors.
It makes much more sense to assume that Wi-LAN did, in fact, have a number of deals lined up, including the production of the ASIC by Philips, to be used in their own products at 2.4 GHz.But something happened to disrupt all of Wi-LAN's plans.
That could only have been the FCC decision.
Looking at the timeline, in May Wi-LAN got the first notification of FCC refusal. By that time, the deals must have been in an advanced state of negotiation. The FCC news must have been received at Wi-LAN with shock, and disbelief. How could the FCC have disallowed W-OFDM at 2.4 GHz?
Then Wi-LAN, with all these potential deals in the balance, was faced with a decision: go public, and "polarize" the FCC, or keep it low-key, and try to get the decision reversed.
Quite sensibly, in view of the totally unexpected and illogical decision by the FCC, Wi-LAN kept quiet, because the company had every reason to expect a successful appeal.
At that point, there was no reason to prejudice everything, when a reversal of the decision would make everything right. And, a reversal would have seemed like the only possible sensible outcome, to Wi-LAN.
So Wi-LAN kept up a brave front, and continued to announce deals that had, in fact, been negotiated.
Meanwhile, the tech wreck proceeded, the appeals went nowhere, and the price of the ASIC would not drop, through economies of scale. The mystery backer, seeing that the plan could not proceed if spectrum at 2.4 GHz was to be denied, pulled out of the deal.
Now the markets and the media turn on Wi-LAN, who can say nothing, because they still don't want to alienate the FCC.
Was the FCC decision the result of lobbying by Wi-LAN's competitors? I don't know: I can only repeat that the decision was illogical and unexpected. It is difficult, in the absence of sound arguments by the FCC, to ascribe a reason for the decision. Your guess is as good as mine.
In the end, Wi-LAN has recovered.
But I would like the National Post, and all those "analysts" who berated Wi-LAN for its sudden lack of "credibility" to think about this:
Did they really think that Wi-LAN would have invented those ambitious plans? Did they really think that... oh, never mind. Did they "think", at all?
rr's comment - about the quick and easy information that came to the press on the FCC decision (half of whom had probably never been on the FCC website, and never in the 18 months before then, did a national story on an FCC decision - is suggestive of collusion by the press.
One day, the real story will come out. It is dangerous to extrapolate with little data.
But I think that we will find that Wi-LAN has been victimized, not least by the Canadian media.
So have Wi-LAN investors.
Those who "broke" this story, with the suddenly-discovered minutiae of the FCC decision, must have played a leading part in the gutting of a leading Canadian enterprise. As rr indicated, it sure looks like they were spoon-fed with the "story": by whom, and for what, are other questions.
Regards,
Jim |
