[kictanet] How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

[Ali Hussein]

Listers

A look at how modern-day monopolies operate and how Systemic Failure in how
regulators regulate can cause a player to use heavy-handed tactics to gain
and maintain Market Dominance.

Is it time to relook at how State Players navigate the increasingly
complicated Technology Landscape to ensure Market Driven Monopolies don't
abuse their powers?

The examples are many but of note are:-

1. Microsoft in the '90s
2. Google and Facebook in the 2010s
3. And now Qualcomm whose bad behaviour is now coming to light in a
scathing indictment by Judge Lucy Koh in an Anti-Trust ruling in the US.

This latest misbehaviour by #BigTech calls the whole 'Free Market' ethos of
the Capitalist System to question. How will the world deal with such
Systemic Failure and State Capture by huge multinationals? The Qualcomm
Story
<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/how-qualcomm-shook-down-the-cell-phone-industry-for-almost-20-years/>
is
even more shocking in its scope because it held to ransom some of the
biggest players in the Global Telcom sector - From Lenovo, to Apple to
Blackberry to Samsung. It is amazing how it took so long to unravel and
even now as we speak the game is not over yet.

Read on:-

In 2005, Apple contacted Qualcomm as a potential supplier for modem chips
in the first iPhone. Qualcomm's response was unusual: a letter demanding
that Apple sign a patent licensing agreement before Qualcomm would even
consider supplying chips.

How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years!
<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/how-qualcomm-shook-down-the-cell-phone-industry-for-almost-20-years/>


*Ali Hussein*

*Principal*

*AHK & Associates*



Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>


13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,

Chiromo Road, Westlands,

Nairobi, Kenya.

Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
organizations that I work with.
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