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

arstechnica.com

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

#281

Post by calyth2018 »

guardiangod wrote: post #19

As a former worker at Blackberry(RIM) cellular chip division (hello fellow RCT-ees), this article explains so much it physically hurts me. RIM pushed hard to develop its own chip 3G/4G chips because Qualcomm absolutely strangled the company with its licensing cost/terms. They pretty much demanded a separate cellular R&D team (QCT) that duplicates half the effort. All CDMA based phones must contain chips from QCT beca…

Yup. And I remember how quickly all the press panned subsequent attempts, saying BlackBerry overcharged.

This is one big piece of that puzzle. I'd still kill to have a vertical slider for a phone...

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

#282

Post by calyth2018 »

aey wrote: post #86
guardiangod wrote: post #19

As a former worker at Blackberry(RIM) cellular chip division (hello fellow RCT-ees), this article explains so much it physically hurts me. RIM pushed hard to develop its own chip 3G/4G chips because Qualcomm absolutely strangled the company with its licensing cost/terms. They pretty much demanded a separate cellular R&D team (QCT) that duplicates half the effort. All CDMA based phones must contain chips from QCT beca…

I don't think Qualcomm strangled RIM with their 3.4% (peak!) licensing fee on the selling price of the phone. If RIMs profit margin was 3.5% they had bigger problems. Here is the thing. If Apple sold a 2G network based iPhone with a non Qualcomm IP modem, and a 4G iPhone at 2x the price with a Qualcomm modem, which one would make more money for Apple?

They have other problems, that's for sure.

But if you need to give Qualcomm money for the 9000 Bold (in house stack, no qualcomm at all, GSM, and sold around the world), because you need to license it to buy the modem for the 9670 Bold (CDMA, sold in select market, and CDMA use was minimal elsewhere), then out of the 99 problems you've got, Qualcomm is one of them.

RIM sold more 9000 than 9670. In its heyday, the GSM stuff is everywhere, but needed to keep the CDMA for NA and a half-hearted attempt to enter China.

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

#283

Post by calyth2018 »

macspoofing wrote: post #40
guardiangod wrote: post #19

As a former worker at Blackberry(RIM) cellular chip division (hello fellow RCT-ees), this article explains so much it physically hurts me. RIM pushed hard to develop its own chip 3G/4G chips because Qualcomm absolutely strangled the company with its licensing cost/terms. They pretty much demanded a separate cellular R&D team (QCT) that duplicates half the effort. All CDMA based phones must contain chips from QCT beca…

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

That's like saying all of the US's problem is Trump.

Reality is often a bit more nuanced than that.

Patent licensing fees were a big part of the equation, which led to inability to lower costs to compete.

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

#284

Post by calyth2018 »

oarla wrote: post #195

This article makes it sound like Apple and Intel and poor victims of Qualcomm's bullying. That is hardly the case. Both are much bigger than Qualcomm, and have been bullies in their own way. Funny to see them cry wolf

Try working at say LG, HTC, BlackBerry, anyone that wasn't top dog in their ecosystem.

You pay Qualcomm a lot of money just to get access to the modems, but they'll ignore you for bug fixes, firmware, etc...

The word Qualcomm drop (update in the Qualcomm code) sent a shiver down my spine. They'd fix one bug and introduce two others, that is if the bug big enough that they couldn't simply ignore you in the first place.

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

#285

Post by mixmastamyk »

oarla wrote: post #195

This article makes it sound like Apple and Intel and poor victims of Qualcomm's bullying. That is hardly the case. Both are much bigger than Qualcomm, and have been bullies in their own way. Funny to see them cry wolf

Big, rich victims.

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

#286

Post by macspoofing »

calyth2018 wrote: post #283
macspoofing wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's like saying all of the US's problem is Trump. Reality is often a bit more nuanced than that. Patent licensing fees were a big part of the equation, which led to inability to lower costs to compete.

>Patent licensing fees were a big part of the equation, which led to inability to lower costs to compete.

Yes. OP asserted that too. Like OP, you haven't actually given a reason why. Here's some counter-arguments:

1) BB grew exponentially all the while paying Qualcomm licensing fees - why didn't it affect them then?

2) EVERYONE was paying the same licensing fees to Qualcomm. You couldn't build a smartphone connected to the cellular network and not pay those fees. So are you saying that it affected BB more than it affected Apple, Palm, MS, Samsung, etc. ?

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

#287

Post by ksec »

ngold wrote: post #253
guardiangod wrote: post #19

As a former worker at Blackberry(RIM) cellular chip division (hello fellow RCT-ees), this article explains so much it physically hurts me. RIM pushed hard to develop its own chip 3G/4G chips because Qualcomm absolutely strangled the company with its licensing cost/terms. They pretty much demanded a separate cellular R&D team (QCT) that duplicates half the effort. All CDMA based phones must contain chips from QCT beca…

>Qualcomm's first weapon against competitors: patent licensing terms requiring customers to pay a royalty on every phone sold—not just phones that contained Qualcomm's wireless chips. This gave Qualcomm an inherent advantage in competition with other chipmakers. If another chipmaker tried to undercut Qualcomm's chips on price, Qualcomm could easily afford to cut the price of its own chips, knowing that the customer w…

And if Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung, or ZTE had offer a modern modem, it would be the same.

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

#288

Post by ksec »

scarface74 wrote: post #168
forrestthewoods wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pro patent and copyright law. But they are, by strict definition, government sanctioned monopolies. There ain’t nothing free market about this licensing situation.

It’s even worse in this case. For Qualcomm’s patented IP to be a part of the standard they agreed to license it on FRAND. They didn’t.

They did, it is just whether it was fair or not was up to debate.

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

#289

Post by ksec »

fluffything wrote: post #228
gumby wrote: post #167

Part of this comes from the willingness of EE standards bodies to standardize on stuff that is covered by patents. I was going to say "part of the blame" but it was Qualcomm's choice to take advantage of this. Rambus is another bad guy in this regard.

This +1. Imagine if ECMA script or the ISO C++ standard were covered by patents.

You cant compare the R&D spent in Wireless and Video Codec to an EMCA Script or C++ Standard.

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

#290

Post by ksec »

zaroth wrote: post #129
blunte wrote: post #108

I find great irony in Qualcomm exercising a monopoly position to take a % of total phone price from Apple... since Apple uses its monopoly position to take a % of all app revenue. What Apple thinks would be fair for Qualcomm chip license fees would also be reasonable for App Store fees.

Apple doesn’t get a percent cut of Android app sales.

And not just Qualcomm, Ericsson, ZTE, Nokia get a percentage cut of iPhone as well.
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