As strange as it may seem, Apple and Qualcomm have made peace after years of litigation and a day after the latest court case, theorized to be worth around $30 billion, kicked off. The resolution sees the companies signing a six-year license agreement, appropriately the effective start is April 1, 2019, and it includes an option to extend the deal another two years beyond that, a multiyear chipset supply agreement and Apple is paying Qualcomm an undisclosed amount to boot.
The legal battle between the two since 2017 has reached heights that only past battles between Microsoft and various governments or Oracle against … well, just about everyone … previously reached. It was barely a week ago Apple was accusing Qualcomm of witness tampering, this is after years of billion dollar court battles.
There is a possible method to the madness we are presented with today, which involves about five G's. See, there has been a row going on since last year, when some benchmarks showed that Apple, whom chose to switch between Intel and Qualcomm cellular modems, were purposefully slowing the Qualcomm modems down so they did not outperform the Intel ones. This problem seems to have continued into the coming generation, as Apple seems to be lagging behind with no public plans to release a 5G phone until some time in 2020.
Making peace with Qualcomm could accelerate the arrival of a 5G iThang, theoretically this year but more likely early 2020; earlier than it would have been if they had to depend on Intel to supply them as would be the case while litigation continued to escalate. In the end this does seem like good news for both companies as well as the consumer.
When asked for comment certain Intel employees responded with an interpretive dance yours truly was unable to decipher.
This was most certainly not a
This was most certainly not a link I was going to include.
This news(1) just
This news(1) just arrived!
“SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 16, 2019 – Intel Corporation today announced its intention to exit the 5G smartphone modem business and complete an assessment of the opportunities for 4G and 5G modems in PCs, internet of things devices and other data-centric devices. Intel will also continue to invest in its 5G network infrastructure business.
The company will continue to meet current customer commitments for its existing 4G smartphone modem product line, but does not expect to launch 5G modem products in the smartphone space, including those originally planned for launches in 2020.’ (1)
(1)
“Intel to Exit 5G Smartphone Modem Business, Focus 5G Efforts on Network Infrastructure and Other Data-Centric Opportunities”
https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-modem-statement/#gs.63hzll
P.S. To any laid off Intel 5G
P.S. To any laid off Intel 5G engineers Apple is hiring in that department because Apple still has the need to control it’s products entire development process.
Apple will most likely still be wanting to bring its 5G needs/development in-house at some point in time.
Well Qualcomm’s cut of the
Well Qualcomm’s cut of the action licensing has earned it some near billion dollar fines across several markets but maybe both Qualcomm and Apple stood to lose too much income if they continued to fight! And the larger the possible judgment the longer the lagal case will be drawn out as the appeals process and other factors come into play.
It also looks like Intel maybe could not meet some 5G radio IP performance deadlines for Apple and/or supply contracts/timelines for Apple. So that also factors into things that maybe forced Apple to come to some compromise with Qualcomm. Qualcomm makes more Income From IP licensing so any continuing quarterly revenue decreases also came into play as Qualcomm’s investors will not tolerate that for too many business quarters and neither will the Wall Street Quants and their investment fund clients like the big retirement funds/other big institional investor funds.
Either way Qualcomm is a supplier with many FRAND related cellular radio based standards essential IP/Patents and Qualcomm needs to be regulated in the Cellular Market supply chain to act less like some racketeering based entity and more like a parts supplier. So that percentage of any Phone/Tablet/Laptop OEM’s total sales price action needs to be stopped. Qualcomm should only be able to charge a fixed price for its parts that go into any Phone/Tablet/Other OEM devices and be fored to play fairly with any standards essential IP that Qualcomm licenses to Third Parties.
The governments around the world, especially the USA, need to be really Trust Busting any Monopolies that should only be parts suppliers for a fixed per unit pricing and not allowed to charge any OEM based on their OEM Product’s Final Total Wholesale/Retail Pricing! And other suppliers are not able or allowed to do so. Qualcomm may need to be broken up if any of these sorts of abuses continue that Qualcomm has been found guilty of and fined for doing so in markets around the world.
Any company that’s a monpoly standards essential market IP holder or a monopoly market share holder and that’s been found guilty on too many occations of abusive market pricing/market cornering tactics should automatically be fast tracked to be broken up as an illegial abusive monopoly interest.