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Apple to acquire the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business
- baybal2 7y agoMore than a modem, they also get a gigantic patent portfolio to fight off Qualcomm's trolling
- mudil 7y agoQualcomm is a leader in this space. It’s not clear yet that Apple will be successful in the fight.
- baybal2 7y agoThey don't even have to be. The truth is that there is not so few 3rd party modems out there, it'd just nobody other than Chinese used them before because of Qualcomm's threat. Even if they will use that portfolio purely defensively, it will be kind of useful for them
- mythz 7y agoWith the massive settlement with QCOM, Apple's given themselves 6 years to try and develop competing chips which Intel wasn't capable of after many years and multi billion R&D investments. Given they're going to continue using Intel's existing 2,200 staff it's not clear what Apple can bring to the table other than a bigger R&D budget, perhaps they can eek out an edge with their tighter h/w + s/w integration. But as they're taking over the development they must think they can or at least use it as a bargaining chip for more favorable licensing from QCOM. From a company health and security perspective it makes sense for a company as large as Apple to try and not be beholden to an external company for core technology, so from that perspective given the investment is a rounding error for Apple they might as well continue trying to compete.
- nicoburns 7y agoApple can probably bring much better high-level management than Intel. Intel haven't managed to make a success of anything except x86 processors, whereas Apple do well in markets they target more often than not...
- ineedasername 7y agoWhile it would represent a novel venture for Apple, they could also clobber Qualcom with the threat of competing as an OEM, threaten to not only vertically integrate, but also to license their work to everyone else, for cheap. I admit it's unlikely they would actually turn OEM though.
- lyttlerock 7y agoAccording to Intel's latest quarterly report[1], 2,200 employees is ~2% of their entire employee base. Kinda reminds me how massive these companies are. [1] https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-education-and-news/investor-news/press-release-details/2019/Intel-Reports-First-Quarter-2019-Financial-Results/default.aspx https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-education-a...
- MrVitaliy 7y agoIs Apple finally going to build significant presence in Silicon Forest?
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoWith this aquisition, this will be apple's second or third office in Munich.
- lnsru 7y agoI am really glad, these engineers kept their jobs. More interesting is that Munich has similar sized offices of Apple and Qualcomm now. Their topics’s aren’t really overlapping, but the roots of both companies lie in Siemens. Maybe this also hinders their global success.
- currysausage 7y agoI can’t find anything about Qualcomm having Siemens roots. Are you sure about that? Qualcomm bought some BenQ Mobile (ex-Siemens) patents from HP (Palm), but according to Jobs, these were rather worthless: Just for the record, when Siemens sold their handset business to BenQ they didn’t sell them their essential patents but rather just gave them a license. The patents they did sell to BenQ are not that great. We looked at them ourselves when they were for sale. I guess you guys felt differently and bought them. We are not concerned about them at all. [1] Maybe this is what you were thinking about? If there is more, I’d be glad to hear about it! [1] http://www.project-disco.org/competition/012313-patent-bully-steve-jobs-unethical-use-of-patents-45773/ http://www.project-disco.org/competition/012313-patent-bully...
- lnsru 7y agorf360jv.com I am sure.
- currysausage 7y agoSo Siemens > EPCOS > TDK > Qualcomm/TDK (RF360 Joint Venture)? That is super interesting, thank you!
- retromario 7y agoWhich are the other offices? I heard they closed down Metaio after acquiring them a few years back.
- duxup 7y agoIt worries me that this effectively ends up behind the Apple wall and everyone else is stuck with the status quo.
- dstaley 7y agoThis is, by far, my biggest concern with this acquisition. In markets where the iPhone is the major revenue driver, what incentive will carriers have to optimize their network for non-iPhone modems? I can easily see the US carriers neglecting Qualcomm modems to the point where if you want the best cellular experience, you have to use an iPhone.
- Skunkleton 7y agoA very large number of non-apple cell phones are sold in the US. This doesn't seem like a well founded fear.
- SpaceRaccoon 7y agoThat's true, but there is the perspective that iPhone users are more valuable, as they typically spend more money.
- dstaley 7y agoThat's definitely true, but I suspect that when you filter down to postpaid unlimited data plans (likely the customers with the highest margins), the iPhone's share of the market increases considerably.
- scarface74 7y agoNot a large number of high end non Apple phones....
- nradov 7y agoSamsung sells huge volumes of high end phones.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoConsidering how awful Intel modems are, this is disappointing. I was hoping they would stick with Qualcomm.
- Skunkleton 7y agoApple did a good job w/ their CPUs. I assume that they are planning to do something similar with their modems.
- Traster 7y agoIt is going to be absolutely amazing if Apple manages to turn around what has essentially been a failing business for the last 10 years.
- amluto 7y agoApple has two major things going for it IMO: First, they have a huge buyer: themselves. This also means they can closely integrate with the AP and driver folks. Second, Apple is not Intel. Intel is famously quite bad at managing the development of anything that isn’t a CPU. Apple (or, frankly, basically anyone else) may be able to fix the cultural issues that make it impossible for Intel to build a reasonable non-CPU product.
- tenebrisalietum 7y agoAren't Intel NICs considered the best, due to the way it manages interrupts (can't remember the source at the moment but I did read somewhere they were better than RealTek but maybe not necessarily Broadcom)? Also every Intel motherboard of course has an Intel-developed chipset. Didn't Intel also develop HDCP which is also in every television and graphics card at this point - though I'm not sure what Intel hardware is behind that.
- amluto 7y agoIntel NICs are indeed good. I suppose that an exception. I don’t know much of the history behind HDCP, but the crypto is a joke. Interesting things to look up: SoFIA, Puma 6, all the Atom-based phones out there, Larrabee / Xeon Phi. A lot of money has been spend, and the returns have been dubious.
- dang 7y agoA couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502437 A month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20175583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20175583 Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20365415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20365415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19678498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19678498
- ksec 7y agoIntel has a history of acquiring company and then sell it for less ( e.g McAfee ). The Wireless Modem was acquired from Infineon in 2010 for $1.4B. It had 3500 employees then, compared to only 2200 moving to Apple now along with lots of Wireless patents that Intel has contributed to LTE and 5G NR over the years. The $1B sounds like a very good deal. My guess is that the recent Intel BaseBand modem design are worth very little to Apple. It is based on Intel's 14nm ( and 10nm for the 8160 5G NR Modem ) , since Intel is winding down their Custom Foundry, and Apple has a much better relationship with TSMC, the chance of Apple fabbing their Modem with Intel is close to Zero. The last TSMC Intel Modem was Intel XMM 7480 used in iPhone 8 / X. But even if the Modem is literally worthless, I would have thought the patents are worth a little more than $1B? I am wondering if part of the deal is making sure Apple sticking to x86 and Specifically Intel's x86 CPU on the Mac for at least another 5 years. No ARM or AMD Mac. Edit: On another note. The Honor 9x [1] is selling in China for $280 VAT inc. If that is $250 excl VAT, the iPhone XR selling at $750 is 3x the price. Apple got a lot of explaining to do for the market to justify its price tag. And privacy alone, which is what they are pushing is not enough. [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/14667/honor-unveils-9x-9x-pro-allview-display-kirin-810-48-mp-camera https://www.anandtech.com/show/14667/honor-unveils-9x-9x-pro...
- PaulHoule 7y agoI remember talking to someone about how Intel's acquisitions performed poorly and he pointed out infineon and I shook my head. You think some ceos should be under a covenant that they can't acquire companies the same way that alcoholics shouldn't drink.
- wmf 7y agoI am wondering if part of the deal is making sure Apple sticking to x86 and specifically Intel's x86 CPU on the Mac That goes against everything Apple stands for; they will not give up control for any amount of money. The Qualcomm deal was really an emergency outlier.
- iamdead 7y ago> Apple got a lot of explaining to do for the market to justify its price tag. If it were down to feature lists and price tags, Apple wouldn't be selling very many phones. It seems Apple might be explaining itself in a way that doesn't resonate with you, which is which is fine. > I am wondering if part of the deal is making sure Apple sticking to x86 and Specifically Intel's x86 CPU on the Mac for at least another 5 years. No ARM or AMD Mac. I suspect that Apple had a lot of leverage in this negotiation, since they were the main ones interested in using Intel's modems as leverage against Qualcomm. So Intel's modems are more valuable to Apple than they are to other players, including Intel. But I don't know anything.
- elsonrodriguez 7y agoSo basically Apple gets Qualcomm to agree to a settlement for all their lawsuits, then Apple buys Intel's modem business once there's no legal ramifications. I'd be willing to bet Apple dumps Qualcomm at soon as the multi-year deal is up in favor of their in-house chips. Well played.
- sanguy 7y agoApple has a pattern here. Started with CPU's (PA Semi) and moved into flash controllers (AnoBit), GPS (coherent), GPU's (Imagine Tech), and now cellular modems. The prior have been well integrated to give us the latest Axx designs. It's only a matter of time for the cellular modem to be integrated tightly as Apple takes it in house. Qualcomm will be pushed out; it is only a matter of time now. Not if; but simply when.