Motorola and Huawei have been embroiled in a dispute over trade secrets and intellectual property that was spurred by Nokia Siemens Networks agreeing to buy out Motorola’s networking division. Huawei didn’t want NSN to gain access to all the work that they’ve done in collaboration with Motorola over the past 10+ years, which is understandable. On Tuesday both firms announced that they’ve agreed to stop fighting each other in court and that they want to keep on working together like they’ve always been. The one and only catch is that Motorola now has to pay Huawei a fee, which hasn’t been quantified, because they’re transferring some of their assets to NSN. So who wins and who loses? Motorla wins because they can finally unload their networking unit and go back to focusing on making set top boxes and mobile phones. Huawei gets a little bit of pocket change, which is a short term plus, but now their competitor, NSN, has more technological expertise and contracts with operator than they did in the past. And finally there’s NSN, who hasn’t been a profit center for Nokia for years, mainly because they’ve been waging a price war to gain market share. They now get more staff, IP, and their foot into the North American market.
“Throughout our decade long relationship with Motorola Solutions, Huawei has contributed cutting edge technology to Motorola Solutions for use around the globe. Huawei provided Motorola’s experts and counsel with source code and millions of documents. Huawei acted properly and above board at all times and developed its products independently and without the use of any Motorola trade secrets. With the resolution of these cases, and the misunderstandings put to rest, Huawei is pleased to move forward with its efforts to provide innovative solutions to its customers,” said Guo Ping, Vice Chairman of the Board and Executive Vice President of Huawei.