back to article Qualcomm tells Broadcom: Pfffft! $103bn? You insult the very core of our cores

Qualcomm's board has unanimously rejected Broadcom's $103bn buyout proposal, slamming its rival's bid as having "dramatically undervalued" the multi-billion-dollar chipmaker. "It is the Board's unanimous belief that Broadcom’s proposal significantly undervalues Qualcomm relative to the Company's leadership position in mobile …

  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Expected answer

    It is the Board's unanimous belief that Broadcom’s proposal significantly undervalues Qualcomm relative to the Company's leadership position in mobile technology and our future growth prospects

    Note that they didn't include the possible/probable liabilities from all the law suits they are facing.

    Never mind, the current leadership will be long gone before any of them result in QC actually having to stump up any dosh.

    1. Youngone Silver badge

      Re: Expected answer

      I read the statement as:

      "As the Qualcomm board do not expect lucrative jobs after the takeover, we cannot recommend shareholders sell."

      Or something like that.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "It is the Board's unanimous belief that Broadcom’s proposal significantly undervalues Qualcomm relative to the Company's leadership bonuses."

    FTFY

    Forgive my naivety here but isn't Qualcomms value going to drop a lot when Apple stop using them?

    1. whoseyourdaddy

      "Apple stops using them?"

      Unless you start expecting late-generation iPods from them, its called patent infringement.

      What do you call an iPhone with Intel Inside?

      Cheaper.. Which is why the Apple store carries Qualcomm versions of the phone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The only reason Apple needs Qualcomm is for Verizon/Sprint CDMA support. When those carriers have upgraded the bulk of their network to LTE, Apple will drop support for their older technologies and won't need Qualcomm. Qualcomm's patent dominance is all about CDMA, they don't have any such dominance for LTE and 5G. Sure, they have plenty of LTE patents but they are one of many - including Apple - who also own plenty of LTE and 5G patents (Apple's are owned via acquisition, probably they have been planning for when they'd no longer need Qualcomm for years now)

        Intel's next gen cellular modem catches up with Qualcomm's in standards support, so the (rather weak IMHO) argument that Intel's is inferior falls apart. Even now, does it really matter that the latest iPhone can handle only 600 Mb LTE instead of gigabit LTE like Qualcomm's? Not unless you think it is a big deal being able to exceed your monthly data allowance in one minute instead of two.

        Apple is hardly the only company that will be dumping Qualcomm. Look for Samsung to go all in on Exynos around the same time - they split between Exynos and Qualcomm for the same reason as Apple, because they need CDMA support in the US and the few other markets that use it and Exynos' cellular modem doesn't support CDMA.

        Qualcomm is probably going to have a hard time keeping Snapdragon going once their CDMA monopoly is over. They aren't even designing their own cores, they're just using standard ARM cores meaning CPU wise they have no advantage. Once their cellular ace in the hole is gone they've got to compete with Mediatek, Rockchip and maybe Samsung if they start offering Exynos to other smartphone OEMs.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          >>to exceed your monthly data allowance in one minute instead of two.

          It matters for operators and network capacity.. every byte takes less spectrum, fewer channels and less licensed bw.

          >> they aren't even designing their own cores

          Incorrect, they have an architectural licence, and the snapdragon cores are customised with codenames like Krait, Kyro, Scorpion and so on.

          Apple has limited options to grow profits in a rapidly commoditising market. The way they choose to increase their margins is to spend more on marketing and to squeeze suppliers. They don't invest in R&D and have one of the lowest R&D spends in the industry. Most tech companies invest in R&D (google 15%, fb 20%, qualcomm 22%, apple 4%). The engineering innovation actually comes from suppliers. Much of what is called their innovation are not in engineering but in design. Cook is a supply chain guy and innovation is basically a supply chain procurement within Apple.

          As someone within this industry it surprises me how little tech journalists understand how the industry works and how much of what is being credited as apple innovations have little to do with them.

          What you can credit them for is design. A tech fashion house.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            t matters for operators and network capacity.. every byte takes less spectrum, fewer channels and less licensed bw.

            The faster speeds are just more channels being combined. Gigabit LTE doesn't use spectrum more efficiently than 600 Mbps LTE, it just uses more of it at once. It isn't saving operators anything, but it sounds good advertising "we have gigabit LTE" even though no one will ever see that.

            Incorrect, they have an architectural licence, and the snapdragon cores are customised with codenames like Krait, Kyro, Scorpion and so on.

            That's right I forgot that after using standard cores in their first 64 bit models they'd gone back to their own with Kryo on the 835. Not that Kyro improves performance over competition using standard cores, so unless they do a better job designing their own they aren't giving anyone a reason to buy them vs Mediatek or others.

            1. Chz

              There doesn't seem to be much custom work at all in the Kyro cores vs. the standard A73/A53. Certainly Huawei doesn't pretend that they fiddle about with their licensed ARM cores much, and the Kirin matches or exceeds the SD835 in nearly every benchmark. I think the "custom" Kyro core is a lot of hot air. They've basically tweaked something in the front or back end to communicate with the rest of their systems and called it a fully customised core.

              SD820 was fully custom, but you'd have been better off getting an A72 instead. The A72-based Kirin was better in most day-to-day tasks. Qualcomm made a custom core that excelled at things no-one wanted to do with it.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              >>The faster speeds are just more channels being combined

              Not just more channels, it's one part of it. Others include MIMO and additional spatial streams, unlicensed assist. All of these can help raise network capacity.

              Also the same "gigabit lte" on qualcomm is with 4 channels, on intel, samsung it's with 5. Likewise the new 1.2gbps lte is 5 channels on qualcomm, 6 with the others. The same is true of lower speed CA in the market.

              It's not just marketing blurb - the "gigabit LTE" specmanship might be if you assume that is all there is to it..

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