The poor have wifi chips in their phones
I think you have skewed sense of what I mean by poor or "ultra-cheap" handsets. I am talking about handsets that sell for anywhere from $20-$50. You can get a color screen, but they certainly dont have WiFi.
I don't think mobile chip development had billions more poured into development than lots of other components that make up cell phones like GPUs, CPUs, screens, they've just carved themselves out a sweet royalty arrangement and without that arrangement prices would adjust and the poor would still have cellphones.
If a GPU or CPU vendor develops a new technique to give them a competitive advantage, they get to monetize that by selling a component that is differentiated from their competitors. Same for things like multi-touch by Apple. That doesnt happen in wireless.
The standards committees require that you license any and all comers for your patents. If Qualcomm develops a new way to more efficiently download data, the method gets incorporated into the standards and all of their competitors get to create chips with the feature.
I absolutely guarantee you that the wireless world would have been different, and worse, if companies couldnt expect to earn a return on their R&D through royalties. I very much doubt that Qualcomm would have licensed their CDMA patents to all comers. We probably would have the balkanized system that I referred to earlier with a small number of suppliers. The systems wouldnt perform as well and the smaller volumes would have meant higher prices across the board.
Been a nice discussion, I'll let this be my last word on the subject.
Slacker |
