News Qualcomm hit with massive fine

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/07/24/qualcomm-hit-with-massive-fine/1

Mobile communications giant Qualcomm has been hit with a record fine by South Korean antitrust authorities over claims of anticompetitive behaviour.

:O

 

Hmm, cutting deals for exclusivity agreements? It seems like I've heard something about that from another tech giant recently.... Now who could that be?

 

Qualcomm? I seem to remember them. Ah yes, they licenced the MSM7200 chipset to HTC for use in the TyTN ii, but then said HTC would have to pay another several million after the deal was done to use the damn drivers. So the HTC TyTN ii has never had in it's history proper drivers to use 2d and 3d graphic acceleration that is inbuilt to the chipset.

This results in an experience from an originally £500 phone that is similar to first installing XP and having 16 colours at 640 x 480 resolution - wholly unpleasant.

I think this is a success for the consumer more than anything else, woo.

 

£126.4 million represents 28% of the 'profits' last quater which in the grand scheme of things for them is naff all. What a joke, so if they paid straight away it would make the 3rd quarter results look bad which will have a knock on affect with stockholders and customers, plus lg and samsung might want to move away, but for dodgy dealing like this i'd expect a fine that will actually make them think o crap before doing it again. epic fail by the fair trade commission imo

peace

fatman

 

for some reason when I think of Qualcomm I think of Foxconn, which also may get in trouble for possible maltreatment of their workers in China- which i'm sure you guys've heard about.

 

It took me a moment to remember where I've seen the name Qualcomm. It's on the back of my Blackberry. Don't know if all of them have Qualcomm chips, but apparently mine does.

I'm not so sure why this is such a big deal though. If I I was providing another company with hardware and they agreed to use me as their exclusive provider, why shouldn't I cut them a good deal? I would get a steady flow of income from that customer and they would get a good discount. If another company says I will buy some hardware, but I will be shopping around with other suppliers, I wouldn't be able to count on a steady flow of income from them. So why not charge them more?

 

Forum thread where?

 

With all these anti competition hearing, where do the likes of Apple, Palm, and Blackberry stand with their exclusive deals with O2 and Vodafone respectively.

 

Is that what actually happened?

The general consensus on the forums i read was that it was HTC simply being cheap and not buying the driver.
Qualcomm doing the old 'bait and switch' tactic to get more money sounds feasible, but it's the first i've heard of it