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How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

arstechnica.com

71–80 of 314 posts

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can do that, if you are sitting in a McDonald’s dining room . They can’t stop you from walking over to Burger King.

It's analogous to McDonald's selling you a dining room and then regulating what food you can eat in it.

Except you're perfectly aware of that fact when you buy the dining room.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#72
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Microsoft did have a monopoly in the browser market at that time. Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in the browser market or the phone market or the app market. You can’t abuse a monopoly you don’t have.

The monopoly was in the OS market. Microsoft got in trouble for trying to use that monopoly to create a new one in the nascent browser market.

And Apple has no monopoly. Having a monopoly is a pre-requisite for being found guilty of using a monopoly to leverage your way into an adjacent market.

End of story.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they really 'strangle the company'? Blackberry had a meteroic rise and they collapsed because of iPhone and (later) Android.

After reading about it particularly "Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry", I think guardiangod is correct, but also Verizon and, to a much lesser extent, the whole stock dating scandal. If Verizon hadn't been so gun-ho for an iPhone killer, Blackberry would probably of got to something like the Passport a whole lot faster. They needed to stay in their l…

The Passport was a phenomenal device, and nothing like it has been built since. Large square screen and big touch sensitive keyboard, but yet still super manageable due to its squat height... if there was a modern Android version I'd go for it in a heartbeat. Not great for watching videos, but it would be super for everything else.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#74
post #9

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Perhaps you should take a moment to review what a monopoly is.

I don't think things are as clear cut as you make them out to be. Apple says nobody can run apps on their phone without handing them a 30% cut. No side-loading, no other stores, nothing. There is very obviously a market for apps that Apple controls completely. Just because there are other app stores for other phones does not mean Apple doesn't have control over the entire market for iPhone apps. Markets can be narrow…

This is a tangent, but FYI, there is a DRM'd Keurig case, and it is still going! https://www.pbwt.com/antitrust-update-blog/in-long-awaited-o...

The judge essentially paused the case for four years while he ruled on a motion (which is ridiculous) so it's been quite slow. But I'm still watching it...

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#75
post #38
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPU design and RF stuff are both very difficult; I wouldn't assume one way or the other. I wonder if knowledge of CPU design is more widely dispersed (e.g. you can hire ex-Intel, ex-AMD, ex-IBM people) than cellular radios where the only (working) ones seem to be made by Qualcomm.

> cellular radios where the only (working) ones seem to be made by Qualcomm. Seems strange, given that plenty of manufacturers are making the radios on the other side of the cellular connection. Can't, say, Ericsson take the radios in their cell towers or picocells, redo their tape-outs for phone scale, and end up with a workable mobile radio?

> Ericsson take the radios in their cell towers or picocells, redo their tape-outs for phone scale, and end up with a workable mobile radio?

Ericsson used to make cellular chips for mobile devices. They decided to leave that industry rather abruptly, leaving us high and dry on one product I worked on.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get into details, but basically I agree with you. The Storm...was a product of many compromises. But it's only the start of a series of decisions that...

I dearly wish someone would explain the whole idea of why Blackberry built the Playbook. It seems like a product that was so forced with such a confusing development story.

I've heard that the Playbook was actually in development before Apple's iPad was announced, and after that it got rushed out. I don't remember where I read this (it was a couple of years ago), so I don't know how accurate that is.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#77
post #61
post #10

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> If you mean Apple owns and runs an App Store, then yes, but that’s not a monopoly. They also refuse to permit their customers to run apps not approved by Apple on the phones they have bought. That's the monopoly.

Huh? That’s still not a monopoly. Argue that they’re violating anti-consumers laws to have access to device you purchased, sure, but what you’re describing is in no way a monopoly.

I think it comes down to how narrow you want to define the market. And even if it is a monopoly, that doesn't mean anything by itself. Monopolies aren't illegal.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#78
"In recent years, Samsung has often shipped smartphones with its own Exynos chips in some markets, while selling Qualcomm chips in others—particularly the United States and China. It's not clear exactly why it does this, but a reasonable guess is that Samsung believes that it's more vulnerable to Qualcomm's patent threats in those countries."

Qualcomm originally had the patents for CDMA (as opposed to GSM) which has a lot of presence in the US and in China but not most of the rest of the world.

In years when Apple used both Qualcomm and Intel chips, the Qualcomm chips were for Verizon and Sprint which were CDMA networks before LTE and the Intel chips went to AT&T and T-Mobile which both use GSM.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#79
post #35
post #34

So why did Apple decide to make its own SOCs but not its own modem chips? I would expect making CPUs and GPUs to be a lot more difficult than modems, no?

CPU design and RF stuff are both very difficult; I wouldn't assume one way or the other. I wonder if knowledge of CPU design is more widely dispersed (e.g. you can hire ex-Intel, ex-AMD, ex-IBM people) than cellular radios where the only (working) ones seem to be made by Qualcomm.

One difference is there is a hella lot more engineers that know how to design and tape out digital designs than mixed signal RF ones. Qualcomm and a few other companies employ most of them.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#80
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In United States v. Microsoft Corp.[0] it was determined that Microsoft abused monopoly it's power by simply preventing OEMs from removing internet explorer. Apple demands that all web browsing is done via Safari on IOS as I understand it. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C... .

But Microsoft did have a monopoly in the browser market at that time. Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in the browser market or the phone market or the app market. You can’t abuse a monopoly you don’t have.

QCOM doesn't have a monopoly in the baseband market either, yet Koh's court found QCOM's monopoly there. The FTC simply redefined a market where QCOM had a dominant marketshare -- the "premium" modem market (LTE) -- for Koh to come to that ruling.

So I guess if someone can prove AAPL's dominance in "premium" PC, education, or some niche subgroup in PC market, it too can be in trouble.

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