Former courtroom adversaries Nokia and Qualcomm to commence cooperation

Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs hints at increase of business activities in Finland

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The Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia and the American wireless telecommunications research and development company Qualcomm, who argued in court over patent infringements for years, look set to engage in cooperation.
      From mid-2010 Nokia will start using Qualcomm’s chipsets in its 3G phones aimed at the American market.
      Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs is all smiles when he talks about the possibilities that teaming up with Nokia can bring.
      “Nokia has the potential to become a really big client of ours, and we are excited about the possibility of selling more chips. Despite our past disputes, both companies have always held each other in high esteem, and on the personal level relationships have been good”, Jacobs says.
      Qualcomm is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of mobile phone chips. Its largest clients are the South Korean handset manufacturers Samsung and LG.
      Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Devices at Nokia considers entering into cooperation with Qualcomm a natural step for the Finnish company, which a couple of years ago gave up developing its own chipsets.
      “Now that the long patent dispute has been put behind us, this is a perfectly natural progression for both firms. Qualcomm is one of world’s leading chip producers”, Öistämö says.
     
In August 2007 Nokia sold its integrated circuit operations to the French-Italian STMicroelectronics, which in turn partnered up with the Swedish Ericsson Mobile Platforms. The name of the 50/50 joint-venture is ST-Ericsson.
      The tightened competition does not worry Jacobs.
      “Our aim is to remain a forerunner in discovering new technologies.”
     
Cooperation with Nokia makes Qualcomm also a Symbian affiliate. Two weeks ago the company joined the Symbian open source code camp. Öistämö considers Qualcomm’s joining in the Symbian Foundation, which is close to Nokia’s heart, “extremely significant.”
      “Symbian is the world’s most popular mobile phone software platform. We are happy to support it. Because of our past disagreements Qualcomm remained outside of Symbian for a long time”, Jacobs continues.
     
Nokia and Qualcomm’s cooperation is set to start from the United States, where Nokia has had difficulties for a long time.
      Last year Samsung, which uses Qualcomm chipsets, became the mobile handset market leader in North America.
      Jacobs believes that cooperation can improve Nokia’s position in the United States.
      “I believe it is also one of the things Nokia expects from our cooperation.”
      Nokia and Qualcomm’s cooperation may also prove fruitful from the Finnish employment point of view. At the beginning of January Qualcomm bought from the American AMD the Bitboys Company based in Noormarkku, Finland.
      “Our idea is to be close to our clients. I consider it even likely that our business activities will expand in Finland”, Jacobs predicts.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Nokia files another countersuit against Qualcomm (12.6.2007)
  Nokia to open its content and application store this spring (17.2.2009)
  Nokia suit against Qualcomm dropped by ITC (22.11.2007)
  US import ban sought for Nokia phones (24.8.2007)

Links:
  Qualcomm Press Release
  Nokia
  Symbian

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