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ZTE Shuts Down Main Business Operations After US Ban (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: ZTE wasn't kidding around when it suggested that a U.S. Department of Commerce order would "severely impact" its survival. It's hard to image a successful path around the seven-year ban on the sale of U.S. products to the company imposed after it reportedly failed to sufficiently reprimand staff for flouting Iranian sanctions. Earlier today, in fact, the Chinese smartphone/telecom manufacturer announced that it had ceased its main business operations as it attempts to figure out the best way forward. "As a result of the Denial Order, the major operating activities of the company have ceased," the company wrote in an exchange filing spotted by Reuters. "As of now, the company maintains sufficient cash and strictly adheres to its commercial obligations subject in compliance with laws and regulations."
The electronics supply chain is full of American parts and IP. You could probably build a competitive electronic doodad without any American content, but you'd need to do that from the get-go and until recently they had no reason to do this. It will take many months or years to put out new versions of their products - and in the meantime, they have no suppliers to keep manufacturing going.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Most of the tech press is centered around the smartphone business (TFA is one of the few I've seen which does not make much emphasis on Smartphones, but does not tell the whole story), and the lack of Qualcomm Chips and Google services on the phones, but the problems run much deeper.
The bulk of ZTE's money do not come from the terminal business (Smartphones + CPEs [think ADSL/GPON modems and Wifi]). No, the bulk of ZTE's money comes from telco network gear, and there the sanctions already got their effect.
ZTE uses Acacia's chips for their optical (think fiber optics) equipment, and Acacia's shares are way down as a result.
You need Broadcom chips for the CPEs, MIPS and Brocade chips for the telco routers, PowerPC chips for the telephony switches, Altera's FPGAs for a myriad of specialized functions. and the list goes on and on...
You need certain OSs for your BSS/OSS systems. Things Like RedHat and Suse (yes, Linux is FOSS, but in order to play nice with the telcos, you need the certified Cosher/Halal versions).
While on the subjetc, while the guys of OpenSS7 have done a huge aamount of work, the SS7 solutions available and viable on linux are all the commercial variety (or you have to go to the ussual suspects), and all based in the USoA. Same for the X.700 implementations (SNMP's mucular, smart, badass, MMA older brother) in Linux and other OSs (HP-UX, AIX and Solaris).
Your boards run all sorts of RTOSs, for instance, wind-river...
Your IPTV gear needs all sorts of Processors and SW subjected to the embargo...
As a result of the ban, all these technologies are off-limits to ZTE now.
So no, this is not about "Qualcomm chips and Google's OS for Smartphones". If it were only that, the company would continue operating, and in less than 18 months, you would have a "Mediatek + AOSP based" Smartphone from ZTE taking over a decent chunk of market...
Good we have slashdot to get/set the record straight.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
A LOT of the IP for cell phone technology is covered by loads of patents in the US (and most anywhere else a Japanese, Korean or European cell phone company sells phones, which is pretty much everywhere) Good luck building anything that connects to a 4G network without running through a gauntlet of patent infringement claims.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
> there is nothing unfortunate about ZTE getting punished for supporting bad behavior of 2-bit despots in other countries.
Have you looked at the history of Iran and why their leaders hate the US? Our history books like to leave out some inconvenient parts of this story.
They have every reason to distrust us and every right to arm themselves. It's the only way to prevent my country from dropping so much freedom they end up in the stone age. If they ever doubt this path they can ask Syria and Iraq how disarmament worked out.