Nokia and Qualcomm might stop fighting thanks to AT&T?
By Stefan Constantinescu on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 PM PST In Financial/Corporate News
Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) Chief Executive Paul Jacobs said on Thursday that talks with
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) on renewing a technology license may be helped by AT&T (NYSE: T) Inc.’s decision to use Qualcomm’s mobile television technology.AT&T’s Cingular Wireless, which already uses GSM mobile phones from Nokia, plans to add Qualcomm’s MediaFlo mobile TV chips to its phones.
The move could be a way to bring Nokia and Qualcomm together, Jacobs said at a Bank of America technology conference in New York.
Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, and Qualcomm have been negotiating a renewal of a technology licensing agreement that expires April 9. They have disagreed over how much Qualcomm charges for technology licenses.
"The MediaFlo deal with Cingular is a new fact. Maybe there’s a way to find some new common ground there," Jacobs said.
However, on the sidelines of the conference, Jacobs said Nokia and Qualcomm had not discussed the matter, and their talks were still "pretty much at deadlock." He added that it may take external forces, such as legal action, for a resolution.
I call shenanigans.
Heavy duty shenanigans.
There’s a few problems with this article:
1. (and this one is glaring) They state that “AT&T’s Cingular Wireless, which already uses GSM mobile phones from Nokia.” Fact is, there’s 3 Nokias currently available from Cingular, as was pointed out in my rant a while back. 2 are EOL, and the 3rd is coming close. And there’s no replacements in sight.
2. All this means is that Nokia is getting closer to either writing off the entire NA market (since they’d basically HAVE to use Qualcomm chips) or making a deal with Qualcomm, which they desperately don’t want to do, cause it’ll involve some sacrifice.
3. Nokia loves DVB-H. Which leaves only Sprint and T-mobile.