Intel and Samsung Gang Up on Qualcomm, Backing FTC Monopoly Suit!

[Daniel Nenni]

Et Tu Intel? We really have entered a new era in the semiconductor industry. We have gone from innovate to acquire and assimilate to legally annihilate.

“Intel is ready, willing, and able to compete on the merits in this market that Qualcomm has dominated for years,” Intel said in a posting on its website. “But Qualcomm has maintained an interlocking web of abusive patent and commercial practices that subverts competition on the merits.”

Intel and Samsung Gang Up on Qualcomm, Backing FTC Monopoly Suit - Bloomberg

“Despite having requested a license from Qualcomm, Samsung cannot sell licensed Exynos chipsets to non-Samsung entities because Qualcomm has refused to license Samsung to make and sell licensed chipsets,” Samsung said in a filing. Samsung, the world’s biggest smartphone maker, uses a mixture of suppliers -- including itself and Qualcomm -- for the crucial components in its handsets.

“The Federal Trade Commission’s latest submission to the court does nothing to cure the fundamental flaws in its complaint against Qualcomm: no coherent theory of competitive harm and no allegations of the type of conduct that the antitrust laws are designed to address,” Qualcomm said Friday in a statement. “The complaint therefore should be dismissed.”

 

[count]

Intel is such an unethical company. Irony in them joining an anti trust case against a competitor.

 

[Al Putman]

So, Intel lost sales and margin, missed out on Apple collaboration opportunities, and suffered a lack of marketplace credibility because Qualcomm effectively blocked Apple from being supplied by Intel (according to the amicus brief). It will be interesting to see how this plays out. May the best technology - strike that, acquired IP - strike that, lawyers win.

 

[JeffreyHF]

The first Exynos chipset was utilized in a commercial product in the Fall of 2011. Since the Fall of 2013, Exynos chipsets have been used in a few non-Samsung smartphones, beginning with Meizu, who continues to use them today. Meizu is now a Qualcomm licensee, consistent with the NDRC Rectification Plan approved by the government in China.

The true reason why Exynos chips are not widely used as merchant products has nothing to do with Qualcomm.Rather, it's because competitors of Samsung's device business don't want to share roadmap, design, and other proprietary information with a competitor. Motorola had the same problem when they made phones, and chips, and endeavored to be chip merchants.