Yes you are by implying both states are equally possible. It isn't...and claiming "who knows what will happen" is simply a dodge.
Quote:
But you're making too many assumptions in regards to them not being so. What happens if the government here and in Europe decide that Google is abusing its position? What happens if Baidu moves out of China, and challenges them throughout Asia? There are a lot of scenarios that could result in Google losing its dominance.
Will that happen? Who knows, but it could. apple could lose too of course, but we're talking about Google.
I'm not saying that UFOs exist. But you're making too many assumptions in regards to them not existing. What happens if the government here and in Europe have been hiding the existence of UFOs, like in Area 51? Governments are real secretive so you never REALLY know. What happens if UFOs appear circling Washington like they did In Mexico? There are a lot of scenarios that where UFOs could exist.
Will that happen? Who knows, but it could.
But, hey, I'm not saying that UFOs exist...that's not MY position...but it could be years before we really know the truth.
Yes, the probability that Google is in decline in 2011 is much higher than the existence of UFOs in secret government bases 2011. A very very small probability is still much higher than essentially zero.
And where in those two quotes you posted did I say that Google wouldn't overbid? What I said that they wouldn't intentionally attempt to get Apple to overpay. I've said in other posts that Google could overbid, but not for that purpose, perhaps in error.
...
What I'm saying is that I think it's unlikely that Google would have raised their bid above what they were willing to pay. This is what I've always said. Is that definite? Of course not. We can't get into their heads. But it's unlikely they would have done that. We both agree that it's dangerous, because it might not work.
Fact: Google bid beyond the commonly assessed value of the patents.
"Analysts say the Nortel LTE patents normally would be worth as little as $100 million to $200 million, but agree that demand is so strong for them that the Chapter 11 auction could send their value soaring."
"One such figure that?s been doing the rounds is $2.9bn, and it may be that Nortel, which looks to be selling its assets off piecemeal, is looking to drive some interest in its 4G IPR. However, Stuart Carlaw, vice president and chief research officer at industry analyst ABI Research suggests that this figure is somewhat overblown."
So any bid over $2.9B is "overpaying" even accounting for the assessed strategic value by market analysts.
Fact: The bidding started with a high Stalking Horse bid to prevent lowballs. $900M for $100M-$200M of actual value is already an indicator that Google wanted to push valuation far beyond the likely real dollar value of the patents.
It's true that Google likely never bid beyond what they were willing to pay ($4B). That in no way indicates that they wouldn't bid in a manner to make Apple overpay even if the outcome is they ended up owning the patents at an inflated price.
Especially since that was guaranteed the moment they made the $900M stalking horse bid.
There is no way in hell the Rockstar consortium will ever see $4.5B in revenue out of those patents.
So did Rockstar overpay? Hell yes.
Did Apple overpay? Probably not since they only shelled out $2B and they're happy, along with the others, to chip away at Android with more patent royalties and litigation.
If Apple paid $4B, given their patent portfolio is far stronger than Google's, they'd have vastly overpaid where $4B is somewhat reasonable for Google to try to shore up a weak IP hand. Still too much money but justifiable.
In hindsight, Google should have put in a stalking horse bid at $3B and bluffed everyone else. $900M was a bit too small.
Apple is NOT going to use the LTE specific patents to keep manufacturers from making LTE phones. The result of the patents will make iPhones slightly less to make because the FRAND royalties will probably be set to be more than Nortel's $1/handset...as much as Apple thinks it can get away with without inviting regulatory reaction.
The high purchase price might even help...the patent pool sold for 3 times expectations so it can be argued that Nortel undervalued the patent values at $1/handset and it should be $3/handset. Oh gee, RIM has a license and MS might have enough rights to convey a license under WP7. That also gives a slight edge to the other handset makers in the consortium that make Android phones but AFAIK Samsung, HTC and Moto aren't in that group. Sony and Ericsson are.
I would guess that MS license to the LTE patents won't be transferable, since they are hardware patents and won't be part of the OS. 1$ per handset starts to look interesting. Suppose 100mil handsets per year for 10 years (assuming the patents are about halfway through their life) - that would give a valuation of around $1BN - assuming that Apple's cost of capital is around 1%. Given that the global market for all handsets is floating around 1billion/year, it doesn't seem implausible that Apple will turn a profit just on the LTE royalties.
Comments
I'm not saying that Google is in decline.
Yes you are by implying both states are equally possible. It isn't...and claiming "who knows what will happen" is simply a dodge.
But you're making too many assumptions in regards to them not being so. What happens if the government here and in Europe decide that Google is abusing its position? What happens if Baidu moves out of China, and challenges them throughout Asia? There are a lot of scenarios that could result in Google losing its dominance.
Will that happen? Who knows, but it could. apple could lose too of course, but we're talking about Google.
I'm not saying that UFOs exist. But you're making too many assumptions in regards to them not existing. What happens if the government here and in Europe have been hiding the existence of UFOs, like in Area 51? Governments are real secretive so you never REALLY know. What happens if UFOs appear circling Washington like they did In Mexico? There are a lot of scenarios that where UFOs could exist.
Will that happen? Who knows, but it could.
But, hey, I'm not saying that UFOs exist...that's not MY position...but it could be years before we really know the truth.
Yes, the probability that Google is in decline in 2011 is much higher than the existence of UFOs in secret government bases 2011. A very very small probability is still much higher than essentially zero.
And where in those two quotes you posted did I say that Google wouldn't overbid? What I said that they wouldn't intentionally attempt to get Apple to overpay. I've said in other posts that Google could overbid, but not for that purpose, perhaps in error.
...
What I'm saying is that I think it's unlikely that Google would have raised their bid above what they were willing to pay. This is what I've always said. Is that definite? Of course not. We can't get into their heads. But it's unlikely they would have done that. We both agree that it's dangerous, because it might not work.
Fact: Google bid beyond the commonly assessed value of the patents.
"Analysts say the Nortel LTE patents normally would be worth as little as $100 million to $200 million, but agree that demand is so strong for them that the Chapter 11 auction could send their value soaring."
http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Mob...dding-War.html
"One such figure that?s been doing the rounds is $2.9bn, and it may be that Nortel, which looks to be selling its assets off piecemeal, is looking to drive some interest in its 4G IPR. However, Stuart Carlaw, vice president and chief research officer at industry analyst ABI Research suggests that this figure is somewhat overblown."
http://www.telecoms.com/12468/nortel...rth-that-much/
"The $4.5 billion price tag was three times larger than what analysts had initially expected Nortel's patents would sell for"
http://articles.economictimes.indiat...-george-riedel
So any bid over $2.9B is "overpaying" even accounting for the assessed strategic value by market analysts.
Fact: The bidding started with a high Stalking Horse bid to prevent lowballs. $900M for $100M-$200M of actual value is already an indicator that Google wanted to push valuation far beyond the likely real dollar value of the patents.
It's true that Google likely never bid beyond what they were willing to pay ($4B). That in no way indicates that they wouldn't bid in a manner to make Apple overpay even if the outcome is they ended up owning the patents at an inflated price.
Especially since that was guaranteed the moment they made the $900M stalking horse bid.
There is no way in hell the Rockstar consortium will ever see $4.5B in revenue out of those patents.
So did Rockstar overpay? Hell yes.
Did Apple overpay? Probably not since they only shelled out $2B and they're happy, along with the others, to chip away at Android with more patent royalties and litigation.
If Apple paid $4B, given their patent portfolio is far stronger than Google's, they'd have vastly overpaid where $4B is somewhat reasonable for Google to try to shore up a weak IP hand. Still too much money but justifiable.
In hindsight, Google should have put in a stalking horse bid at $3B and bluffed everyone else. $900M was a bit too small.
Apple is NOT going to use the LTE specific patents to keep manufacturers from making LTE phones. The result of the patents will make iPhones slightly less to make because the FRAND royalties will probably be set to be more than Nortel's $1/handset...as much as Apple thinks it can get away with without inviting regulatory reaction.
The high purchase price might even help...the patent pool sold for 3 times expectations so it can be argued that Nortel undervalued the patent values at $1/handset and it should be $3/handset. Oh gee, RIM has a license and MS might have enough rights to convey a license under WP7. That also gives a slight edge to the other handset makers in the consortium that make Android phones but AFAIK Samsung, HTC and Moto aren't in that group. Sony and Ericsson are.
I would guess that MS license to the LTE patents won't be transferable, since they are hardware patents and won't be part of the OS. 1$ per handset starts to look interesting. Suppose 100mil handsets per year for 10 years (assuming the patents are about halfway through their life) - that would give a valuation of around $1BN - assuming that Apple's cost of capital is around 1%. Given that the global market for all handsets is floating around 1billion/year, it doesn't seem implausible that Apple will turn a profit just on the LTE royalties.