There’s a bit of a publicity war going on at the moment with the main proponents of CDMA, the CDMA Development Group and Qualcomm, reacting to Nokia’s move away from CDMA with a mix of wounded pride and “they can’t stand the heat” comments.
True to recent form, which has seen Qualcomm take Nokia on over IPRs in the USA and the UK, and defend an accusation on licensing practices from Nokia and others in Europe, Qualcomm has been the more aggressive mouthpiece.
A statement from the company said that Nokia’s decision to “ramp down its CMDA R&D” would have little effect on Qualcomm, given Nokia’s lack of volume shipments in the market in the first place.
Not content to leave it at that, Qualcomm helpfully pointed out what it saw as the reasons for Nokia’s lack of success in the CDMA market, namely increased competition compared to GSM and the ineffectiveness of Nokia’s vertically integrated business model in the market.
Answering suggestions (never actually directly made by Nokia but reached for by many in the press) that Nokia quit its JV with Sanyo because of the costs of CDMA licensing, Qualcomm’s president Steve Altman said the JV would have operated under Sanyo’s existing licence agreement, which required no alteration within the JV.
Concurrent with Qualcomm’s response the CDG, which represents all the companies involved in CDMA, of which Nokia is a member by the way, just happened to release a statement confirming the rude good health of CDMA, its ability to prdouce 3G phones at GSM 2G price points and (sound familiar?) the relative lack of market power of Nokia.
So if Nokia’s market power was so puny, why the big fuss? Answers on a postcard, please.