InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[laranger]

Comments by posters, in the article by Business Week, concerning the planned Nokia/Sanyo JV:

Nickname: Mark

The real story of this proposed joint venture between Nokia and Sanyo, is that Nokia cannot compete well in a market where the odds aren't stacked in its favor.

The secret to Nokia's 2G (GSM) success is that it and a few other handset makers contributed the lion's share of patents, and enjoyed favorable patent sharing positions. Other aspiring handset firms have had to shell out royalty payments approaching 20%! This skewed playing field helped Nokia establish itself as a gorilla in the handset business.

Nokia has been desperately trying to recreate a similar uneven playing field for 3G. In short, Nokia's exertion of influence has been quite damaging to competition and resulted in a superior 3G standard (CDMA 2000 promoted by Qualcomm) being shut out of Europe for years while Nokia struggled to catch up with its championed "W" CDMA. The thing is, Qualcomm collects the same royalty rate on CDMA 2000 as on "W" CDMA, revealing Nokia's real motivation--slanting the playing field.


Nickname: Skeptical2 but Courageous

I do not agree with the comment that you cannot compete in markets with just CDMA handsets. Technology has evolved and the requirements are now too great to focus on both GSM & CDMA. So I think you will see synergies from both companies that make outstanding handsets for the consumer. Heck, Verizon is the largest carrier in the world and Nokia has had little success with that carrier going at it alone. The skepticism comes from how the brand will be marketed and if the Nokia Sayo name will hold the same value to the consumer as Nokia or Sanyo alone in the CDMA business.

Nickname: skeptic

Review: Unfortunately, it's going to be tough for this new company to compete only in the CDMA market - the scale is just not there to be profitable. A tip to the management: why are LG, Samsung (even Qualcomm) etc., going over and hedging into WCDMA. Have Nokia and Sanyo really thought this through?

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060216_176562.htm