Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf retiring in June

Interesting to see the outcome of the Qualcomm / Apple skirmish described as a “truce”. Qualcomm dragged Apple through the mud and handed them their backsides on a platter. A miscalculation on Apple’s part that cost them dearly. 

mr lizard said:

Interesting to see the outcome of the Qualcomm / Apple skirmish described as a “truce”. Qualcomm dragged Apple through the mud and handed them their backsides on a platter. A miscalculation on Apple’s part that cost them dearly. 

"cost them dearly"?

Uhm, no.

Seems like whatever the cost of the "truce", that cost has been easily recouped, and then some, with Apple's own Modem expected in the near future.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/05/apple-outpacing-smartphone-industry-growth-will-dominate-5g-market-in-2021

tmay said:

mr lizard said:

Interesting to see the outcome of the Qualcomm / Apple skirmish described as a “truce”. Qualcomm dragged Apple through the mud and handed them their backsides on a platter. A miscalculation on Apple’s part that cost them dearly. 

"cost them dearly"?

Uhm, no.

Seems like whatever the cost of the "truce", that cost has been easily recouped, and then some, with Apple's own Modem expected in the near future.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/05/apple-outpacing-smartphone-industry-growth-will-dominate-5g-market-in-2021

This article directly puts your linked article into doubt:

"The company plans to ship 500 million mobile chips with 5G by the end of 2021" 

Less than half of those will be in Apple handsets, according to the estimates that have been quoted. 

That's just QC. Now throw in Huawei, Samsung and Mediatek et al.

Now add on non-handset devices. 

If you want to niggle and say but it claims 'outpacing growth' then that is effectively worthless as competitors have been shipping 5G modems for a while now. 

Yes, the situation cost Apple dearly. 

They will be shipping a bolted on X55 (announced almost two years ago!) for the best part of the whole year. They are scrambling to get a homebrew modem out via acquisitions and hiring away engineers from competitors.

Let's not try to paint things otherwise. The complete Apple 5G plan imploded before its eyes. The bet on Intel backfired. 

We are witnessing the fallout from that. 

That's ok. Things backfire for everyone at some point. 

tmay said:

mr lizard said:

Interesting to see the outcome of the Qualcomm / Apple skirmish described as a “truce”. Qualcomm dragged Apple through the mud and handed them their backsides on a platter. A miscalculation on Apple’s part that cost them dearly. 

"cost them dearly"?

Uhm, no.

Seems like whatever the cost of the "truce", that cost has been easily recouped, and then some, with Apple's own Modem expected in the near future.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/05/apple-outpacing-smartphone-industry-growth-will-dominate-5g-market-in-2021

Nah, there is absolutely no way to spin the idea that Apple won Apple vs Qualcomm. 
Apple had an existing agreement with Qualcomm at an industry standard per device rate.
Apple stopped paying licensing fees under that existing agreement and tried to get Qualcomm to agree to a much lower per device rate.
Qualcomm sued Apple over the unpaid fees.
Apple countersued claiming that Qualcomm's licensing terms were an abuse of FRAND and unfair.
When it was OBVIOUS that Qualcomm was going to win their suit and Apple was going to lose their countersuit they announced a "settlement" where:
Apple paid Qualcomm the previous unpaid licensing fees
Apple agreed to make Qualcomm the exclusive supplier of modems through 2024 at the same rate that Apple objected to in the first place.

Only the most "fanboy" Apple-centric sites even attempted to spin it as a win for Apple. The rest of the Apple-centric sites spun it as a "win-win." But the reality is that Apple heard feedback from the legal and regulatory bodies in multiple jurisdictions that nearly all of them were going to rule against Apple on the licensing terms issue - because Qualcomm was charging Apple the same per device fee that they were charging Samsung and everyone else - and some were even going to grant Qualcomm's request to ban the import and sale of iPhones.

Yes, Apple will create their own 5G modem tech. Good for them. But this suit wasn't about what was going to happen in the future anyway. Also, had Qualcomm allowed Apple to get away with it, Apple could have arbitrarily decided to try to lower their licensing payments to a point below where Qualcomm was making profits again (or possibly not pay at all). Yes, it would have been better to lose Apple as a customer entirely than to allow Apple to get away with paying a fraction of what all their other customers were paying, especially since Samsung and the other customers would have demanded the same rate as Apple, and Qualcomm would have had no ability to tell them no. Samsung to Qualcomm: "give us the same rate that Apple has. Qualcomm to Samsung: "honor your contract with us." Samsung to Qualcomm: "Apple had a contract with you too. See you in court." Court to Qualcomm: "You have no legal basis for charging Samsung or any of your other customers more than you charge Apple." So yes, if Apple is at any time willing to withhold billions of dollars from you and tie you up in court for years with absolutely nonsense legal arguments while using a PR campaign to drag you through the mud and assail your reputation as a pressure tactic - knowing that the media is going to write a bunch of columns and articles on their MacBook Airs and iPad Pros that regurgitate your propaganda while totally ignoring that Apple expects everyone else to honor contracts and FRAND terms with them - then yes Qualcomm is better off without them. Qualcomm doesn't need Apple's money to operate, turn a profit, grow or thrive. So just take their money today and let Apple take their strongarm tactics to other suppliers.

And guess what? Even when Apple makes their own modems they will still owe Qualcomm licensing fees for them anyway because Qualcomm owns the patents. And Qualcomm isn't even a patent troll NPE that only exists on paper. They are a practicing entity with a (currently) industry-leading product portfolio with those same patents! Apple is going to pay Qualcomm those same per-device patents whether they buy the 5G modems from Qualcomm or make their own, just as AMD still pays x86 licensing fees to Intel to this day. 

The only reason why we didn't get a bunch of "Apple forced to settle with Qualcomm to avoid losing legal case and iPhone ban" articles from the press is what I stated earlier: nearly everyone in the western press types those articles on iPads and MacBooks. But you had better believe that is what happened, because there is no way that Apple would have agreed to cough up billions and make Qualcomm their exclusive supplier for 5 years if they thought that there was even a 25% chance of winning.

cloudguy said:

tmay said:

mr lizard said:

Interesting to see the outcome of the Qualcomm / Apple skirmish described as a “truce”. Qualcomm dragged Apple through the mud and handed them their backsides on a platter. A miscalculation on Apple’s part that cost them dearly. 

"cost them dearly"?

Uhm, no.

Seems like whatever the cost of the "truce", that cost has been easily recouped, and then some, with Apple's own Modem expected in the near future.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/05/apple-outpacing-smartphone-industry-growth-will-dominate-5g-market-in-2021

Nah, there is absolutely no way to spin the idea that Apple won Apple vs Qualcomm. 
Apple had an existing agreement with Qualcomm at an industry standard per device rate.
Apple stopped paying licensing fees under that existing agreement and tried to get Qualcomm to agree to a much lower per device rate.
Qualcomm sued Apple over the unpaid fees.
Apple countersued claiming that Qualcomm's licensing terms were an abuse of FRAND and unfair.
When it was OBVIOUS that Qualcomm was going to win their suit and Apple was going to lose their countersuit they announced a "settlement" where:
Apple paid Qualcomm the previous unpaid licensing fees
Apple agreed to make Qualcomm the exclusive supplier of modems through 2024 at the same rate that Apple objected to in the first place.

Only the most "fanboy" Apple-centric sites even attempted to spin it as a win for Apple. The rest of the Apple-centric sites spun it as a "win-win." But the reality is that Apple heard feedback from the legal and regulatory bodies in multiple jurisdictions that nearly all of them were going to rule against Apple on the licensing terms issue - because Qualcomm was charging Apple the same per device fee that they were charging Samsung and everyone else - and some were even going to grant Qualcomm's request to ban the import and sale of iPhones.

Yes, Apple will create their own 5G modem tech. Good for them. But this suit wasn't about what was going to happen in the future anyway. Also, had Qualcomm allowed Apple to get away with it, Apple could have arbitrarily decided to try to lower their licensing payments to a point below where Qualcomm was making profits again (or possibly not pay at all). Yes, it would have been better to lose Apple as a customer entirely than to allow Apple to get away with paying a fraction of what all their other customers were paying, especially since Samsung and the other customers would have demanded the same rate as Apple, and Qualcomm would have had no ability to tell them no. Samsung to Qualcomm: "give us the same rate that Apple has. Qualcomm to Samsung: "honor your contract with us." Samsung to Qualcomm: "Apple had a contract with you too. See you in court." Court to Qualcomm: "You have no legal basis for charging Samsung or any of your other customers more than you charge Apple." So yes, if Apple is at any time willing to withhold billions of dollars from you and tie you up in court for years with absolutely nonsense legal arguments while using a PR campaign to drag you through the mud and assail your reputation as a pressure tactic - knowing that the media is going to write a bunch of columns and articles on their MacBook Airs and iPad Pros that regurgitate your propaganda while totally ignoring that Apple expects everyone else to honor contracts and FRAND terms with them - then yes Qualcomm is better off without them. Qualcomm doesn't need Apple's money to operate, turn a profit, grow or thrive. So just take their money today and let Apple take their strongarm tactics to other suppliers.

And guess what? Even when Apple makes their own modems they will still owe Qualcomm licensing fees for them anyway because Qualcomm owns the patents. And Qualcomm isn't even a patent troll NPE that only exists on paper. They are a practicing entity with a (currently) industry-leading product portfolio with those same patents! Apple is going to pay Qualcomm those same per-device patents whether they buy the 5G modems from Qualcomm or make their own, just as AMD still pays x86 licensing fees to Intel to this day. 

The only reason why we didn't get a bunch of "Apple forced to settle with Qualcomm to avoid losing legal case and iPhone ban" articles from the press is what I stated earlier: nearly everyone in the western press types those articles on iPads and MacBooks. But you had better believe that is what happened, because there is no way that Apple would have agreed to cough up billions and make Qualcomm their exclusive supplier for 5 years if they thought that there was even a 25% chance of winning.

Qualcomm won; Apple is on its way to sell 230 million iPhones, $180 B in iPhone revenue, in FY 2021, and on path to $3 trillion valuation in 2022. 

Apple didn't "pay dearly" for that deal.