Update - Press Release from TeleCIS Wireless
Dan Jones, writing on Unstrung, reports that Qualcomm ... has acquired the mobile WiMAX capabilities of TeleCSIS Wireless, Inc. for an undisclosed sum.
Jones' article, Qualcomm Buys Into WiMAX, offers differing perspectives about Qualcomm's intent. One perspective is that this acquisition is simply one more in a string of acquisitions that Qualcomm has made over the past several years to augment its very strong patent position in wireless technology.
Another perspective is that in acquiring the TeleCIS Wireless Mobile WiMAX assets, Qualcomm simply bought more product develop expertise and a quote in the article bolsters this perspective:
"TeleCIS's engineering resources were acquired for their mobile broadband system knowledge and System On a Chip design experience," says a Qualcomm spokesperson. "Their knowledge and experience can contribute to multiple R&D efforts such as UMB, LTE, and other OFDM based technologies such as WiMAX."
But another perspective is that this acquisition, a company, technology, and personnel specific to WiMAX, is tacit admission that Qualcomm is overcoming its parochialism about Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technology which it developed, championed, and over which it has aggressively enforced intellectual property claims and is preparing to tap into the rapidly-growing WiMAX market which, to date, it has completely eschewed.
For TeleCIS Wireless, this seems to be a strategic move. TeleCIS has taken an unusual path (PDF link) in the evolution of WiMAX by creating a chipset that makes many of the advantages of Mobile WiMAX (based on 802.16e) available to systems built for Fixed WiMAX (802.16d). Fixed WiMAX infrastructure is, arguably, cheaper to deploy since it presumes that customer premise equipment will be permanently installed, with access to line power (not operating on batteries), can use a large, gain antenna to permit longer range, higher speeds, greater reliability, etc.
Using TeleCIS chipsets, vendors can build portable equipment that will operate on Fixed WiMAX networks. Spotting that particular market niche was a shrewd move for TeleCIS given that the conventional wisdom that, while Fixed WiMAX does have its place, Mobile WiMAX is going to be far, far bigger than Fixed WiMAX and that the only way to offer portable WiMAX devices is to use Mobile WiMAX.
My guess is that TeleCIS did the math and saw that Mobile WiMAX is, and will increasingly be swamped with chipset vendors that are far larger than TeleCIS, and thus, in Mobile WiMAX, they would likely be marginalized. Thus it makes sense for TeleCIS to focus all its energies on developing the promising niche of offering portable capabilities on Fixed WiMAX networks.
By selling its Mobile WiMAX capabilities to deep-pocketed Qualcomm, TeleCIS Wireless likely profited handsomely. But it's sobering for the WiMAX industry that Qualcomm has acquired even more intellectual property with which it could potentially attack the WiMAX industry with aggressive claims of intellectual property infringement similar to what it has done in the wireless telephony industry.
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh
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