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And also Qualcomm seems to have been forced into giving away all of their server chip designs to the Chinese, too: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/10/qua

by mtgx 8y ago

And also Qualcomm seems to have been forced into giving away all of their server chip designs to the Chinese, too: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/10/qualcomm_layoffs/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/10/qualcomm_layoffs/ That's what you get from frothing at the mouth over "entering the huge Chinese market" by giving away all of your IP and tech through coerced "joint ventures" only to later see yourself kicked out of the market and some multi-billion dollar Chinese competitors selling your tech much more cheaply. And there's this sweet irony, too: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/u-s-star-witness-in-qualcomm-antitrust-suit-china-s-huawei?srnd=premium https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/u-s-star-... If you think all of this is far-fetched, do read on Nortel and Huawei's "joint venture", which led to the demise of Nortel and the domination of Huawei in Canada: https://www.lightreading.com/nortel-huawei-kill-jv/d/d-id/628439 https://www.lightreading.com/nortel-huawei-kill-jv/d/d-id/62... https://www.assemblymag.com/blogs/14-assembly-blog/post/90631-did-outsourcing-and-corporate-espionage-kill-nortel https://www.assemblymag.com/blogs/14-assembly-blog/post/9063... https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60-minutes-torpedoes-huawei-in-less-than-15-minutes.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60... That's not to downplay the idiocy of Qualcomm's board and leadership, which also played a huge role in all of this, as well as Qualcomm being involved in multiple antitrust lawsuits. The board and leadership should have been fired at least two years ago. They allowed their greed to stay in the way of the company's technical progress and decided to make money from bullying other companies instead of continuing to improve their products (most of which are just rehashed stock Arm designs these days).

entity345 8y ago
Nortel didn't disappear because of Huawei. Chinese are used as scapegoats for everything these days. I used to work for Nortel and they went the way of the dodo because they were like Nokia (which ended the same way. I worked with them at some point as well...): Too bureaucratic, too slow, not hungry anymore, poor management. For their last CEO they ended up paying $12 million to Motorola because that guy breached the non-competition agreement he had when he took the job at Nortel... Just an example.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  I don't think you can dismiss the Chinese element in Nortel's downfall quite so easily. Undoubtedly Nortel made missteps themselves, but rarely does a large organization fail for just a single reason. In Nortel's case it definitely appears that China played a part. I think it can reasonably be argued from either side on whether or not China's activities served as a tipping point.
  - entity345 8y ago
    It's not 'China'. It's new competitors that blew them out of the water, like Apple and Samsung did to Nokia, for the reasons I listed in my previous comment.
    - ineedasername 8y ago
      Except a major one of those new competitors appears to have been a Chinese company that benefited from misappropriated trade secrets and IP. As I said, more than one reason for a failure of this scale. As an example, Nortel might have emerged from bankruptcy intact, as many companies manage to do, had it not been for the financial collapse of 08'-09'. That downturn made it more difficult for Nortel to get competitive prices for the assets it was shedding in an attempt to emerge from bankruptcy. Prior to that, a contributing factor in the decision to declare bankruptcy in the first place was that it could not easily service its debt and retain enough working capital to support operations. It had plenty of cash on the books, but nearly all of it was in other countries and repatriating it presented very thorny problems. [0] As I said, no one simple reason. [0] http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first+Bankruptcy+protection/2164807/story.html http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first...
      - entity345 8y ago
        "misappropriated trade secrets": I read that as Nortel was poorly managed and handed those on a plate. That's business, if you're not smart others will be more than happy to abuse you. In this case Nortel essentially asked a competitor to manufacture their products from them... What could possibly go wrong? Your last point regarding cash is also an example of poor management in my book. It's too easy to always find scapegoats.

by mtgx 8y ago

entity345 8y ago

Nortel didn't disappear because of Huawei. Chinese are used as scapegoats for everything these days. I used to work for Nortel and they went the way of the dodo because they were like Nokia (which ended the same way. I worked with them at some point as well...): Too bureaucratic, too slow, not hungry anymore, poor management. For their last CEO they ended up paying $12 million to Motorola because that guy breached the non-competition agreement he had when he took the job at Nortel... Just an example.

ineedasername 8y ago
I don't think you can dismiss the Chinese element in Nortel's downfall quite so easily. Undoubtedly Nortel made missteps themselves, but rarely does a large organization fail for just a single reason. In Nortel's case it definitely appears that China played a part. I think it can reasonably be argued from either side on whether or not China's activities served as a tipping point.
- entity345 8y ago
  It's not 'China'. It's new competitors that blew them out of the water, like Apple and Samsung did to Nokia, for the reasons I listed in my previous comment.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    Except a major one of those new competitors appears to have been a Chinese company that benefited from misappropriated trade secrets and IP. As I said, more than one reason for a failure of this scale. As an example, Nortel might have emerged from bankruptcy intact, as many companies manage to do, had it not been for the financial collapse of 08'-09'. That downturn made it more difficult for Nortel to get competitive prices for the assets it was shedding in an attempt to emerge from bankruptcy. Prior to that, a contributing factor in the decision to declare bankruptcy in the first place was that it could not easily service its debt and retain enough working capital to support operations. It had plenty of cash on the books, but nearly all of it was in other countries and repatriating it presented very thorny problems. [0] As I said, no one simple reason. [0] http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first+Bankruptcy+protection/2164807/story.html http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first...
    - entity345 8y ago
      "misappropriated trade secrets": I read that as Nortel was poorly managed and handed those on a plate. That's business, if you're not smart others will be more than happy to abuse you. In this case Nortel essentially asked a competitor to manufacture their products from them... What could possibly go wrong? Your last point regarding cash is also an example of poor management in my book. It's too easy to always find scapegoats.