Qualcomm Sues Apple For Contract Breach

Qualcomm has sued Apple, again, this time alleging that it violated a software license contract to benefit rival chipmaker Intel for making broadband modems, the latest salvo in a longstanding dispute between the two companies. From a report: Qualcomm alleged in a lawsuit filed in the California state court in San Diego on Wednesday that Apple used its commercial leverage to demand unprecedented access to the chipmaker's highly confidential software, including source code. Apple began to use Intel's broadband modem chips in the iPhone 7, which it launched last year.

Qualcomm Always Expensive and Proprietary

[thebes]

Qualcomm has always been perceived as (and actually been) expensive and proprietary in the telecom world, so this should be no surprise when someone else comes to the market for a better price. Apple can probably easily pay to defend this suit purely based on the financial savings of switching to Intel.

Re:Qualcomm Always Expensive and Proprietary

[thebes]

One acronym: CDMA
Another acronym: UMB

Qualcomm got where they got today in part due to their CDMA modem patent revenue. UMB was Qualcomm's proprietary replacement for CDMA that was intended to compete with LTE.

Luckily, the general industry smartened up and went with a partnership standard like 3GPP2. As CDMA support dwindles around the world, Qualcomm is just taking larger and larger hits to their bottom line, relative to what they were before.

Re:

[thebes]

Luckily, the general industry smartened up and went with a partnership standard like 3GPP2.

I need to correct myself.

That should read 3GPP not 3GPP2.

Qualcom is stupid

[hackwrench]

Just how far behind Qualcom does Qualcom think it's competition is?

Qualcomm's panicking.

[SeaFox]

The rumors of Apple developing their own radio chips has them freaking out. Their shareholders will be out for blood if they lose Apple's business.

Re:

[v1]

What I don't understand is how it can possibly benefit you in the long-run to sue the customer you want to keep the business of? Sort of a "biting the hand that feeds you" isn't it?

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

My opinion is that Qualcomm is trying to send a message to all their customers: "Don't try to replace us in any way; we'll sue you."

Re: Qualcomm's panicking.

[Brockmire]

It's inevitable they'll make their own chip. It's stealing their IP and taking away their business that is a real poke in the eye. Helping your customer put yourself out of business is a common thing. Suing them delays the inevitable.

Re:

[SeaFox]

What I don't understand is how it can possibly benefit you in the long-run to sue the customer you want to keep the business of?

I'm sure Qualcomm's case will eventually come down to patents at some point. They will argue it is impossible for Apple to develop their own radios without infringing on one of their patents. So Apple has to get their chips from them (or another maker that is already in a license agreement/otherwise in compliance with Qualcomm).

Qualcomm needs to go away

[WCMI92]

They don't innovate, they have set themselves up as a "tollbooth" on the industry.

Don't innovate?

[haunebu]

They literally invented CDMA, the foundational technology for 3G, and developed an outsized portion of both LTE and the forthcoming 5G network standards & protocols. If you don't like them for whatever reason, that's fine. But an entire industry has been created thanks to their research & development efforts. To say they don't innovate would be asinine.

Re:Don't innovate?

[thebes]

-1 troll

CDMA did not merge with TDMA, GSM, etc. CDMA died a rightful death due to its patent and licensing encumbrance.

Re:

[sl3xd]

They literally invented CDMA, the foundational technology for 3G,

History appears to disagree. CDMA was invented by the Soviets, with research going as far back as 1935 [wikipedia.org].

Qualcomm developed the first Cellular network [wikipedia.org] that used CDMA under contract to AirTouch, (which eventually merged to Verizon).

That said: LTE uses OFDMA [wikipedia.org] (downlink) and SC-FDMA [wikipedia.org] (uplink). It's an entirely different beast than CDMA.

3G does have some relevance as a backwards-compatibility option, but its relevance is rapidly diminishing, with LTE covering the vast majority of the lower 48 states [t-mobile.com].

Re: Qualcomm needs to go away

[Brockmire]

Qualcomm will be easy to demonstrate that they don't provide good docs to any of their customers. Most of the docs I've seen are marked preliminary or draft and no fucking release version even years after the product comes out. Being made to document your shit for the competition would piss me off and call the lawyers.

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Nor provide updates to Android firmware after a couple of years.

Freedreno is in development but it's not the default on any Android distro.

Re:

[davesmall]

The industry is cheering for Apple in this conflict. Steve Jobs mantra: "Let's focus on delighting customers. If we do that then sales volume and profits will follow automatically." Qualcomm's mantra: "Let's focus on screwing over customers and suing them if they don't comply."

Re:

[SvnLyrBrto]

World of difference.

Apple and Qualcomm are actually in a (strained and adversarial at the moment) legitimate business relationship. As a customer of Qualcomm, Apple has every right to expect that the embedded chipsets they but, as part of that relationship, will be adequately documented. There's probably even be a contractural obligation on Qualcomm to that effect.

Apple and J. Random fly-by-night iPhone repair kiosk in the mall are NOT in a business relationship. Apple (And Samgsing, HTC, etc.) does not,

Qualcomm = Suicide Bomber

[davesmall]

Qualcomm is like a suicide bomber. They're going to go down fighting but they're going to kill themselves in the process.