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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave who wrote (16571)	10/15/1998 6:26:00 PM
From: Greg B.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Dave, IMO, the Q has taken a principled negotiation approach, exerting IPR rights to ensure fairness. Whereas your statement about trading a lower royalty rate for convergence seems to project a positional approach on the negotiation. However, we both probably agree that Ericsson, Nokia, etc. and GSM Alliance are playing hard positional bargaining through ETSI. For example, consider the snubbed attempts to address harmonization through agenda manipulation. With no voting power, Qualcomm and others had no chance to accomplish this goal. And the GSM Alliance vehemently opposed convergence, citing it was "too late" to achieve convergence, as well as suggested that the resulting degradation of performance would make the solution commercially inviable. In principle, because Qualcomm is commanding an X% royalty rate across 60 companies, Qualcomm can legitimately ask for the same X% royalty rate in any standard. This point should be clear, and is consistent with what I said before, about "fair" rates. Meanwhile, because two CDMA standards are nearly identical, they should be converged into a single standard. That is also fair from the perspective of operators and global telcom consumers. Therefore, no reason exists why Qualcomm needs to make a compromise between trading a lower royalty rate for convergence. It is not all about being "nice". That is one reason why positional bargaining is so destructive. (I bolded your referenced statement for another reason.) Remember the comment about losing one's shirt? Ericsson and Nokia want the Q to play the soft positional bargainer. I do not understand why you are hoping Qualcomm plays their hand poorly? Ericsson and others are trying to make Qualcomm look like the school yard bully. Anyone with any negotiating experience (e.g., successful sales people) that has followed these developments knows that the exact opposite is true. Recommend Fisher's book. Much more interesting reading. Cheers, Greg