Nokia: ST-Ericsson, Qualcomm, Broadcom…bye bye Texas Instrument, and hello to the new Nokia!
Thomas Menguy | February 18, 2009[From three hardware related Nokia PR, blogger Thomas Menguy shows how those announcements fits within the new Nokia strategy]
MWC is the PR moment, and here are three from Nokia showing how the game is changing in Finland.
Nokia selects Broadcom as a next generation 3G chipset supplier.
“Today’s announcement with Broadcom is a further example of Nokia’s commitment to our diversified, multi-supplier chipset strategy,” said Kai Oistamo, Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia. “This agreement, which targets low cost, high volume markets, demonstrates that we view Broadcom as a reliable supplier to bring the benefits of 3G to Nokia customers around the world.”
Nokia selects Broadcom as a next generation 3G chipset supplier
Nokia and ST-Ericsson announced they are co-operating to provide the Symbian Foundation with a reference platform based on ST-Ericsson’s U8500 single chip
ST-Ericsson, Nokia’s reference platform for Symbian Foundation
Nokia and Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) today announced that the two companies are planning to work together to develop advanced UMTS mobile devices, initially for North America. The companies intend for the devices to be based on S60 software on Symbian OS, the world’s most used software for smartphones, and leverage Qualcomm’s advanced Mobile Station Modem(TM) (MSM(TM)) MSM7xxx-series and MSM8xxx-series chipsets
Nokia and Qualcomm plan to develop advanced mobile devices
What does this mean?
For years Nokia was relying on Texas Instrument to produce its custom 2G/2.5G/3G chipsets. Nokia was designing the core chipset and letting Texas Instrument finishing the integration and physically producing the chips: Nokia was mastering the whole hardware IP of its phones, and was not relying on generic chipsets for the vast majority of its production, with all the margins it implies .
Feeling the wind of change: from one supplier, Nokia is transitioning to three, it has licensed its 3G hardware IP to ST (and presumably to Broadcom, rumors mentioned Infineon also), and will use some “generic†chipsets.
Texas Instrument has really missed the ball here, by stopping 3G investment (well they have made some, but failed delivering), and being mostly ruled by business guys with no technical vision of where the market were going: How a company with 70% of the billion units chipset market may leave it completely in such a short amount of time? Nokia diversification is part of the equation, for sure.
Nokia really seems to shift its focus: relaxing their efforts on the chipset front, they won’t simply try to cut internal cost, they will invest, and my guess (as everyone else ) is of course on Ovi, services, etc.
PR after PR, announcements after announcement, PR after PR, product after product, Nokia is showing how serious it is about reinventing itself again. It won’t happen overnight, but it is coming, and it may be a game changer!
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