Dana Cimilluca, Cara Lombardo, and Tripp Mickle for The Wall Street Journal:
Apple Inc. is in advanced talks to buy Intel Corp.’s smartphone-modem chip business, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would jump-start the iPhone maker’s push to take control of developing the critical components powering its devices.
A deal, covering a portfolio of patents and staff valued at $1 billion or more, could be reached in the next week, the people said — assuming the talks don’t fall apart.
It would give Apple access to engineering work and talent behind Intel’s yearslong push to develop modem chips for the crucial next generation of wireless technology known as 5G, potentially saving years of development work… It has hired engineers, including some from Intel, and announced plans for an office of 1,200 employees in San Diego.
For Intel’s part, a deal would allow the company to shed a business that had been weighing on its bottom line: The smartphone operation had been losing about $1 billion annually, a person familiar with its performance has said, and has generally failed to live up to expectations.
MacDailyNews Take: The talks are back on; may they bear much fruit for our favorite fruit company!
Hold on here boys. My build is dim, but I don’t get it. If Intel says modem bidness is not doing good, blah blah blah, how this gonna help Apple? They gonna Appleize it?
In order for intel to have done well they needed companies to use their modems in their devices. When apple settled w/ QC that put intel way back in the red in terms of recouping their ongoing investment if/when apple returned to using QC (even in the short term). Apple’s ownership and investment will transfer directly to its products–saving apple a ton of dough that they won’t be sending to QC.
For some reason when Apple settled with QC, and then Intel indicated that they would shut their modem devision down, I had the feeling that Apple had that in mind when they settled with QC – devalue Intel’s modem division and then buy it, for what ever reason.
They’re not buying it for the business (Apple would be the manufacturer and the only customer), they’re buying it for the IP and team.
Perhaps there is great potential but my search indicates that Apple baught inferior tech and hired weak engineers, so perhaps Intel threw the latter into the deal to avoid HR complications.