To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11074 ) 6/3/1998 4:29:00 PM From: Maurice Winn Respond to of 152472
Tero, I haven't read all the thread, so some of this might be redundant if others covered it, sorry if so. Thanks for taking the time to think it through, but I have a few challenges to what you said. You said: "It appears that Qualcomm has decided to attempt to block W-CDMA entirely or force it to be corrupted by lowering the chip rate. This aggressive, hostile attitude fits pretty well the established pattern previously shown by forcing Nokia and Motorola to design their own chips by making excessive licensing demands. That earlier demand backfired in a big way, slowing down the technological progress of new CDMA handsets. I think there's a real chance that Qualcomm is once again alienating most of the international telecom community by playing hardball." I doubt that technical purists like Andrew Viterbi are keen to see much corruption of cdmaOne. This is their life's work which will stand for generations. They want it good. Gregg asked you to describe the deficiencies of the reduced chip rate. The fact that Nokia and Motorola decided to make their own chips is important. That is a test of the price Qualcomm put on the IPR. Too high a price and all would have made their own. Too low and nobody would have tried. Motorola didn't do too well, which is some circumstantial evidence that the price was reasonable. Nokia showed it can be done. Bravo for Nokia - is there anything wrong with Nokia - they seem to do everything right? I don't follow it much though. It seems that Qualcomm struck the balance about right. The price of IPR encouraged some competitors to do their own thing, which is good for competition and innovation. Alienating the international telecom community? That to me is the nature of competition. Competitors are not your friends. But the facts are that the competitors were not alienated. Nearly all have paid for IPR. The CDMA Development Group is a veritable whose who, including Ericsson I believe. Alienated? Qualcomm is being inclusive and continues to be, ensuring that all the IS-95 users will be included in the W.cdmaOne system, not excluded as Ericsson and pals are trying to do. An "aggressive, hostile attitude" seems to ill-fit the Qualcomm people or their marketing strategies. Of course they are selling their services for what the market will bear, but that isn't really aggressive or hostile. They seem to me very friendly, reasonable, agreeable people. The game is hardball. And fortunately, if push comes to shove, the USA is the most powerful country and able to protect IPR internationally if needed. So the Europeans won't simply steal the software. Neither will China. You then thought we were overexuberant here about cdmaOne growth rates. China, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, India are all users of cdmaOne. Already! The infrastructure is in place and ready for market development as demand grows. Don't you think it likely that with GSM announced as being the legacy system, and Qualcomm owns the IPR for the next system, that growth will be rapid in cdmaOne? Sure, GSM has huge growth rates now, but cdmaOne growth rate is faster. Much faster! Qualcomm's strategy of covering all points of cdmaOne was wise. If they had left handsets to Motorola, guess what. There would have been no handsets. If they had not developed infrastructure, there would have been few suppliers and competition would have been reduced making phone companies more reluctant to buy. They have licensed all and produced all. They have reduced economies of scale on a wide front as you suggest, but it was an essential strategy in my opinion. They did come a gutser with NextWave, though that story is far from finished. They are reducing the risk by spinning off the phone operator business. But ASICS were essential, handsets were essential, infrastructure was probably a good idea - no harm done, and standards and technical developments are their forte. All pretty balanced I reckon. You ask how voice recognition etc are going. I suppose quite well, just as other things have done. As you say, they are in a big race here and the advantage is to the free cash flow, to coin a phrase, of Nokia and Ericsson. But Qualcomm will continue to hurry along and if they don't Sony and other handset makers have a good free cash flow and will be able to bring competitive cdmaOne handsets to market. Don't forget Unwired Planet, Palm Pilot and a host of other joint ventures by Qualcomm. They are nothing if not inclusive! Thanks Tero, I appreciate reasoned criticism of Qualcomm and if I search through and find nothing to worry me, I'm greatly encouraged. The best critics are competitors and people like you. They find the worst there is and if there isn't much, yipppeeee! Mqurice PS: My compliments to Nokia are quite genuine. They really have been remarkable. They had the wit to get into cdmaOne years ago, they have gained position in handsets and with gadgets like the 9000 are real leaders. I think you'll find them succeeding very well in cdmaOne too, not leaving it on the back burner.