Nokia cancels Sanyo venture, ending CDMA development?
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 22nd 2006 at 10:51PM
Given Nokia's icy relationship with Qualcomm and "an already financially prohibitive CDMA ecosystem in general," it looks like the world's largest mobile manufacturer may be on the verge of turning its back on CDMA altogether. It's anybody's guess what exactly happened behind the closed doors of Sanyokia's meetings that caused things to go south, but in addition to pulling out of their planned joint venture to develop CDMA EV-DO handsets, Nokia is looking to deep-six its internal CDMA R&D by April of next year. That said, they also threw out that they plan to "selectively participate in key CDMA markets, with special focus on North America" going forward, which would jive well with their recently-announced Pantech deal -- likely leaving our Finnish friends with a stable of rebranded Korean handsets on Sprint and Verizon.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Finished.Law.School @ Jun 22nd 2006 11:09PM
Sanyo must have been talking about developing mobile phones with Nokia rather than mobile computers (or whatever terminology that nutty Nokia exec was talking about).
PEZ @ Jun 23rd 2006 6:02AM
Whats with the question mark? Cant you read where you got the article?
READING IS FUNDAMENTLE!
Jake @ Jun 23rd 2006 1:46PM
#3: Spelling is fundamental, as well. The article, in its own words, says that Nokia is "ramping down" R&D in the CDMA area rather than ending it altogether. The idea that they're ending development completely is speculative; at no place in the article is it directly suggested, yet such a conclusion is entirely possible. So there's a question mark.
If Nokia plans to continue selling CDMA handsets in North America, they'll either have to outsource development (as suggested in Engadget's article but not in the source) or continue some amount of CDMA development internally.