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Qualcomm Faces Antitrust Charges In Europe (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Chipmaker Qualcomm is on the receiving end of an antitrust investigation in Europe, where officials say the company has abused its market dominance by offering financial incentives to device manufacturers to exclusively use Qualcomm chips. "Qualcomm was also accused of unfairly setting prices below manufacturing costs to force competitors from the market. ... If found to have breached Europe's antitrust rules, the chip maker could face fines amounting to about 10 percent of its annual global revenue, which was $26.49 billion in 2014, and could be required to change some of its business practices. In previous European antitrust cases, however, companies typically have not been asked to pay such high financial penalties."
Communists
Google is worried enough about Qualcomm's lock on the market that they're looking to get in to the chip design biz.
Qualcomm really blundered their entry in to the 64bit mobile chip market with a part that is pretty much under constant thermal throttle. Google's also interested in implementing features that Qualcomm has no interest in putting in to their SoCs
Apple saw this coming years and years ago and went so far as to buy a chip design company so they could design their own SoCs in house. The result was beating everyone else to the 64bit market by two years (Apple shipped their 5s, a flagship device, in volume, ahead of the holiday shopping season.. Before anyone else was even sampling 64bit arm cores) Also, to this day, Apple's 2 core SoCs typically beat the quad and 4big/4small multi core parts in both performance and efficiency.
This year Apple REALLY has it down too. They've now got an in-house designed SoC AND it's now dual sourced, fabbed by TSMC or Samsung. Their own custom part, with two fabs fighting for their business.
It's easy to see why Google wants in on that.
Wow Big News /. Scoops someone..
NOT..
have a slow day guys
This article sucks, and really shouldn't be on Slashdot. Let's talk about something more useful: national security and freedom.
President Obama recently proposed that anyone on watch lists shouldn't be able to purchase guns. As he put it, terrorists shouldn't be allowed to buy guns. I wholeheartedly agree that terrorists shouldn't be buying guns or in possession of them at all. The problem is that Obama equated being on a watch list to being a terrorist, which is a key distinction. There is no transparency about how a person gets on a watch list. It's very difficult to contest being on a watch list. People are being labeled as guilty of being terrorists without due process of law. The difficulty in contesting being on a watch list is contrary to the first amendment's right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
I recognize that many people don't care about the right to keep and bear arms, but this is a slippery slope. We've already taken away the ability of some people to fly, without allowing due process of law. That's being extended to a right that's explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. If Obama gets his way, it will become easier to remove other rights, including other fundamental rights specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights. These watch lists are also awful at identifying actual terrorists, with the evidence that the San Bernardino shooters were never suspected of being terrorists before actually carrying out their crimes. Obama's proposal strips away fundamental rights while being ineffective at providing real security.
On the other side, there's Donald Trump's hideous proposal to ban Muslims from entering this country. It's an assault on the first amendment's freedom of religion. But it's also totally ineffective. It provides a false sense of security because it does nothing to curb the potentially more dangerous threat from citizens who radicalize while in this country. Furthermore, how do you decide who is a Muslim and who isn't? I suppose Customs and Border Patrol will simply ask people what their religion is when they enter the country. Of course, this is easily defeated by lying and claiming to be Christian, Jewish, of some other religion, or not religious at all. This idea reduces freedom while providing no protection at all.
The problem is that Trump's idea isn't universally ridiculed. While the Republican mainstream wants to distance themselves from Trump's comments, his poll numbers are actually rising. A significant portion of Americans agree with Trump's ideas and are very enthusiastic about them. While it's not a majority of people, the possibility of Trump getting elected cannot be ruled out. It's highly likely that some people who share Trump's beliefs will be elected to Congress. The rhetoric against Muslims as a whole is eerily similar to some of the propaganda against Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
It's scary that these ideas are actually gaining traction and have some support on both sides of the political spectrum. It is extremely important that you contact your senators and representatives in Congress and tell them to staunchly oppose these efforts.
Qualcomm is being accused of predatory pricing. This is illegal in Europe but generally not in the US. This seems like an overly restrictive law that works against the best interests of consumers. There's a good reason why predatory pricing isn't generally against the law in the US. In order to be a profitable practice, there must be a sufficiently large price hike once the competition is forced out of the market in order to recoup their losses. This generally doesn't work. Once the prices are dramatically increased to recoup the losses, the market becomes very attractive to new competition that can make a profit while selling the product at lower prices. As long as there aren't barriers to entry that prevent competition from entering the market, predatory pricing is a losing strategy. However, businesses that attempt predatory pricing actually give consumers a bargain. If predatory pricing was effective, it would be employed far more commonly than mergers and acquisitions, which is a much more frequently used way to remove competitors from the market.
Walmart is another company that's been accused of predatory pricing and actually forced to raise their prices in Europe. If predatory pricing worked, Walmart should be able to defeat just about any competition in the US, where predatory pricing isn't illegal. That really hasn't happened, though. Many of their competitors are still alive and well. Many of the businesses that have gone under have failed not because of Walmart but because of competition like Amazon. If Walmart is really guilty of predatory pricing, they really aren't doing a good job of driving competitors from the market. That said, they are probably giving consumers somewhat of a bargain.
There are plenty of other chip manufacturers that will be happy to compete in the European market if Qualcomm raises their prices. If Qualcomm doesn't raise their prices, then consumers benefit from cheaper hardware. I don't see where the alleged predatory pricing actually hurts consumers. There aren't enough barriers to entry to make the alleged predatory pricing work. This seems like excessive regulation to me.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mtc/locations/TelAviv.aspx
https://goo.gl/maps/eTpLoQb55PU2
...that the EU has some budget shortfalls and needs some more money....so, here comes another round of "anti-trust" violations and fines!
Oh no! Ten whole percent!? What ever are they going to do with such sore wrists?
10% of their global annual revenue isn't just a slap on the wrist. For the fiscal year 2014 it'd be almost $2.7Bn, which would have the net effect of cutting almost a third of their profit, AND have the knock-on effect of their stock taking a dive too.
Why does the EU think 10% of global revenue (not profits, mind you) is fair? Shouldn't that be based on revenue from the EU?
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Note that's 10% of revenue, not profits. That is a pretty large amount.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.