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@ 2019/01/21Investigation: Chose Not To
Apple COO Jeff Williams’ testimony in the FTC Trial, that Qualcomm did not want to sell modems to Apple, appears misleading. Bloomberg’s Ian King viewed emails between Qualcomm’s CEO, Steve Molenkopf, and Apple’s COO, Jeff Williams, and from his article, it was rather clear that negotiations were ongoing, and that Qualcomm wanted to sell modems despite the licensing dispute.
Our investigation into what happened revealed that Apple had several options to purchase modems from Qualcomm for 2018 iPhones.
Our well-informed sources confirmed that Apple had at least two viable options to use Snapdragon modems in its 2018 phones.
Apple could have used Snapdragon X16 modems (used in 2017 iPhones) with comparable performance to Intel’s 2018 modems, but it chose not to.
Apple was offered Snapdragon X20 modems with source code if it committed to certain volumes for 2018 and 2019, and it guaranteed Qualcomm that it would protect its software from misuse. Apple declined.
And in our opinion, a third viable option existed: Apple already had an offer to purchase X20 modems without Qualcomm’s source code; Qualcomm always gave Apple engineering support to help integrate and optimize its modems with Apple’s application processors (APs), so it’s unclear why Apple needed Qualcomm’s source code just to build phones. Apple declined this option as well.
Apple COO Jeff Williams’ testimony in the FTC Trial, that Qualcomm did not want to sell modems to Apple, appears misleading. Bloomberg’s Ian King viewed emails between Qualcomm’s CEO, Steve Molenkopf, and Apple’s COO, Jeff Williams, and from his article, it was rather clear that negotiations were ongoing, and that Qualcomm wanted to sell modems despite the licensing dispute.
Our investigation into what happened revealed that Apple had several options to purchase modems from Qualcomm for 2018 iPhones.
Our well-informed sources confirmed that Apple had at least two viable options to use Snapdragon modems in its 2018 phones.
Apple could have used Snapdragon X16 modems (used in 2017 iPhones) with comparable performance to Intel’s 2018 modems, but it chose not to.
Apple was offered Snapdragon X20 modems with source code if it committed to certain volumes for 2018 and 2019, and it guaranteed Qualcomm that it would protect its software from misuse. Apple declined.
And in our opinion, a third viable option existed: Apple already had an offer to purchase X20 modems without Qualcomm’s source code; Qualcomm always gave Apple engineering support to help integrate and optimize its modems with Apple’s application processors (APs), so it’s unclear why Apple needed Qualcomm’s source code just to build phones. Apple declined this option as well.
