The Qualcomm Equation: How a Fledgling Telecom Company Forged a New Path to Big Profits and Market [Hardcover]

Dave Mock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2005

How did a small, unknown company like Qualcomm manage to storm the wireless industry and grow into a multibillion dollar powerhouse in less than a decade? The Qualcomm Equation provides an in-depth look at Qualcomm's business model, as well as chronicling the exciting early history of the company. Readers will gain insight into the methods Qualcomm used to license a growing list of patents for profit, and learn from the key business strategies that enabled Qualcomm to leapfrog the competition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... a probing account of the rise of the company and the development of its multifaceted strategies for dominance."

-Glider Technology Report

“The Qualcomm Equation by Dave Mock, is a probing account of the rise of the company and the development of its multifaceted strategies for dominance….In this wide ranging and lucidly written book, he [the author] evokes the personalities, the interwoven innovations, the tumultuous history, the global strategy, and the intellectual property of what has become the exemplary Twenty-First Century Technology Company.”

-Glider Technology Report

“…an excellent read with good reporting on the history of CDMA development in cellular radio.”

-Privateline.com

Book Description

"Featuring a foreword by George Gilder

If you’re a Qualcomm customer or stockholder, or in fact if you have a stake in almost any cellular service or even just use a mobile phone, you’re no doubt aware of the enormous impact on the development of cellular technology by actress and sex symbol Hedy LaMarr.

All right, perhaps you’re surprised. The telecom industry has never been short on surprises, and the above example is no exception. Nor is it an exaggeration. Read the book.

Similarly, it is not an exaggeration to say that Qualcomm, through a combination of technological superiority, cunning business acumen, and sheer tenacity, has become the undisputed standard by which telecom companies now measure themselves. In short order, they have also become a model of substantial and sustained growth that businesses in all industries should emulate.

Qualcomm’s rise mirrors that of the cell phone itself. Both are ubiquitous, both continue to evolve rapidly, and both turned the status quo on its head. The Qualcomm Equation reveals crucial but little-known information on the history of cellular and wireless technology -- some of which dates back to World War II -- and shows how the company grabbed the wave just as it began to rise.

How did they do it?

Even while most competitors were using an essential technology, Qualcomm believed in an alternative they had developed, and continued to refine and promote it until at last it caught on. The Qualcomm Equation details how the fledgling company, while their rivals simply duked it out for more customers, made a killing not only by offering great service, but also by leasing their superior standard technology to other telecom companies. While Qualcomm grew its own customer base, they had also, in essence, found a way to make more money the bigger their competitors got.

How can you apply the Qualcomm model in your industry, and in your company?

Following Qualcomm’s example, your company can:

* attract investors by presenting even complex products and technologies in customer- and market-focused language

* prove that its product is essential not only to customers but also to competitors -- so that they come to depend on you rather than trying to defeat you

* make its product and its operations compatible with those competitors, turning rivalries into profitable strategic alliances

* learn from setbacks, and leverage the knowledge and strengths of your partners to overcome obstacles

You’ll also learn crucial strategies to help you define and develop your core business; identify and maximize your company’s role and position in the value chain for customers and shareholders; strike a balance between sharing and protecting proprietary information; and handle regulatory and political concerns both domestically and globally.

In the last decade, Qualcomm has come to define dominance not only in the telecommunications industry, but throughout the global business landscape. The Qualcomm Equation presents their story, and the keys to their unparalleled success.

Not to mention the most important role of Hedy LaMarr’s career..."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 17 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1st edition (March 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814408184
• ISBN-13: 978-0814408186
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,247,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you want to know how Qualcomm became Qualcomm, this is it, April 7, 2005

By 

John Yunker (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Qualcomm Equation: How a Fledgling Telecom Company Forged a New Path to Big Profits and Market (Hardcover)

Qualcomm is the Microsoft of the telecoms industry, for better and for worse. You either love the company or you hate the company; I'm leaning toward the latter, so please keep this in mind.

First, you have to give the company credit for getting to where it is today. Dave Mock does an excellent and meticulous job of documenting Qualcomm's against-all-odds rise to the top of the telecoms industry. I did not realize the degree to which Qualcomm relied on government business in the early days and also did not realize just how close the company came to missing the cellular boat completely. Back when Europe set in place one standard and many in the US wanted to follow suit, Qualcomm stuck to its guns.

And I think that the US is better off for it.

By and large, the mixed-standards "mess" that we have in the US has turned out to be a pretty good thing. Because of competing standards, we have EV-DO, which is a much-faster technology than single-standard Europe has to offer. Competing technologies keeps everyone on their toes, and Qualcomm has certainly kept the GPRS vendors on their toes. Dave Mock does a great job of documenting this drama and making sense of the very complex technical standards and jargon.

Mock is perhaps too kind to Qualcomm, particularly in the latter years, as the vendor transforms from David to Goliath. For example, the company has been in an all-out war with Wi-Fi and WiMAX over the past three years, and it is only recently that we now see the company starting to co-opt some of the same technology underlying WiMAX. Qualcomm recently ditched its much-hyped EVDV technology when it became brutally apparent that carriers want IP and big pipes, something WiMAX was designed to address from the ground up. I find Qualcomm to be a little lost these days, as if it is searching for another big bully to take on again; the trouble is, Qualcomm is now the big bully and it's taking on the types of innovators that it once was.

That said, anyone in the telecoms industry who wants to know how Qualcomm got to be Qualcomm should read this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important work on IS-95, April 24, 2005

By 

Thomas G. Farley - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Qualcomm Equation: How a Fledgling Telecom Company Forged a New Path to Big Profits and Market (Hardcover)

In The Qualcomm Equation Dave Mock does an excellent job of reporting the company's technological and financial history. The first half of the book,"The Radical Technology Solution", interweaves different story lines as well as Brooks did when he presented AT&T's complicated history in Telephone. Mock handles well the difficult job of keeping a cogent narrative flowing while discussing different elements: the founders, their funding, the competition, and the technology itself.

As with Brooks, Mock is not an employee of the company he writes about, nor is this a corporate sponsored biography. Still, having been granted special access to Qualcomm people and papers, he seems at times too favorable to Qualcomm, jeopardizing the validity of conclusions he draws. Never-the-less, the factual reporting he presents is quite strong; there is information here on CDMA development in mobile telephony not found anywhere else.

Part Two: The Intellectual Property Business, explores how IP promotion and control helped Qualcomm become a worldwide company. It's fascinating, to a degree, but I am a technology historian, not a business manager. I feel unable to comment on Part Two's validity but it is obviously well researched.

Gripes? A bizarre Foreword from George Gilder. You'll see :-) And a one-sided approach to covering Qualcomm which is perhaps a structural problem; this book wasn't meant to be a comparative history or to tell the story of another company. Q's decision to withhold payment to Korea's ETRI, later overturned in arbitration to the cost of $80 million, for example, could be viewed as a smart decision by Q to save their stockholders money, or a robber-baron like action intent on defrauding a group that had a legitimate right to be paid. A reader of this book can't tell because we don't have ETRI's position. Nor Qualcomm's legal department. The success of Qualcomm may indeed be based on all the positive things Mock tells us, but it also could be founded, in part, on aggressive lawyers and a bankroll big enough to buy out or shut down competition when threatened.

Positives? An excellent index. Nice, bright paper. A good bibliography and a detailed time-line. 231 pages of good information. Most important, the arrival of Dave Mock as a first class technology historian.

While the history of TDMA based GSM and IS-54/IS-136 is documented in hardcopy and on the web, CDMA based IS-95 has not been covered well until now. This book should be considered an essential title for anyone working in or investigating cellular radio.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Story of how the Telecom Industry was Revolutionized, May 5, 2005

By 

Rex (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Qualcomm Equation: How a Fledgling Telecom Company Forged a New Path to Big Profits and Market (Hardcover)

Dave Mock did an excellent job of giving a good, accurate telling story of how a small start-up company in San Diego revolutionized the telecom industry. The book does not talk so much about the company, the technology, or the business model that made it successful, but rather describes in more narrative manner of the story behind the scenes, its history dating back from decades ago. The book describes in details the numerous technical and business challenges that Qualcomm encountered during the early stages of the endeavor and how the company managed to overcome these obstacles.

Although Qualcomm's story is about how CDMA came about, the book is suitable for both the technical and non-technical audiences as it circumspect more about the entrepreneurship side and what made it work for a group of renowned academic individuals in becoming businessmen. The book is suitable for readers in the wireless industry as well as entrepreneurs trying to look for key ingredients in starting a successful company.