What's Real Scoop on Broadcom > Qualcomm Buyout?

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There is a lot of news circulating about Tuesday shareholder vote of Qualcomm on letting broadcom buy them out or whatever. Apparently Qualcomm is developing 5G technology that will be strategically vital to US military ops. Broadcom is apparently beholden in some aspect to government of China, and the hand wringing is that the deal is sweet in the short term for Qualcomm shareholders and thus they will vote it forward on Tuesday but some are calling for The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to block the merger. Others are calling that line of thinking Protectionism. I can't sort the truth out of the pro-shareholder pro short term profit leaning articles versus the articles urging caution and risk to national security.

The risk to nat'l sec is supposedly because if Broadcom gets control of Qualcomm they will kill Qual's strong progress toward being first out with 5G wireless in favor of letting Chinese government's company Huawei Technologies develop it... if not doing an outright raid on Qualcomm's research and milestones and transferring same directly to Huawei Technologies.

Someone neutral please sort this situation so I know whether or not to wring my hands too and whether or not to begin learning to speak Mandarin Chinese as a 2nd language ...
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President Trump heralded the company's announcement that it would change its domicile to the U.S. by early May, however. If Broadcom does move to the U.S. the issues that CFIUS would review are theoretically moot.
 
Don't believe commercial positioning for rolling out technology is salient to ITAR. I can see battlefield comms being critical, but the onus is on DoS to make a ruling as I recall; these are State matters, not Defense.

There are a number of technologies I can think of, that were bought out by the Chinese and subsequently not available. DoS did not stop it.
 
Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
Broadcom is apparently beholden in some aspect to government of China,
Where is the Chinese connection? I am not seeing it.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Where is the Chinese connection? I am not seeing it.


One of the articles I'd read alluded to it. That's why I was seeking a neutral clarification from anyone who might know the scoop.
 
Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Where is the Chinese connection? I am not seeing it.


One of the articles I'd read alluded to it. That's why I was seeking a neutral clarification from anyone who might know the scoop.
Maybe post a link to it so that we can all weigh in.
 
Edit: Ok so first of all, I'd definitely advise against believing Fox News when it comes to anything technology related as I'm pretty sure they don't have anyone on staff who knows a CPU from RAM.. Secondly, the problem here seems to have nothing to do with Broadcom and China, insomuch as they think Broadcom will cut Qualcomm R&D into new technologies which could impact national security. Maybe, in theory.

Edit Edit: Please, please ignore the comments section on that article, as there is a complete and utter lack of understanding, and a lot of people are making the same mistake, assuming that Broadcom = Huawei = Chinese Government, which is not the case. Broadcom is a separate company, headquartered in Singapore, not China. The article is really poorly, misleadingly written to make that assumption easy, despite being categorically false.
 
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Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/0...l-security.html


Honestly, I am not seeing how you can conclude from this piece that Broadcom is "beholden in some aspect to government of China." Broadcom is Singapore based.

I think the author of that news piece is stipulating that China might indirectly gain from this transaction only because he thinks Qualcomm may no longer be able to compete. This is very speculative, IMO.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick R
Edit: Ok so first of all, I'd definitely advise against believing Fox News when it comes to anything technology related as I'm pretty sure they don't have anyone on staff who knows a CPU from RAM.. Secondly, the problem here seems to have nothing to do with Broadcom and China, insomuch as they think Broadcom will cut Qualcomm R&D into new technologies which could impact national security. Maybe, in theory.

Edit Edit: Please, please ignore the comments section on that article, as there is a complete and utter lack of understanding, and a lot of people are making the same mistake, assuming that Broadcom = Huawei = Chinese Government, which is not the case. Broadcom is a separate company, headquartered in Singapore, not China. The article is really poorly, misleadingly written to make that assumption easy, despite being categorically false.


[off-topic]
Nick, my, you really grow up!
Proud of you!!!
[/off-topic]
 
Politics. But also, Apple. They are one of Broadcom's biggest, if not the biggest customer. Almost all Macs and iDevices use Broadcom wifi radios, touchscreen controllers and Bluetooth chipsets.

Broadcom also supplies a lot of the SOCs used in cable and xDSL/fiber gateways, as well as the ones used in cable boxes.
 
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Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/0...l-security.html


Honestly, I am not seeing how you can conclude from this piece that Broadcom is "beholden in some aspect to government of China." Broadcom is Singapore based.

I think the author of that news piece is stipulating that China might indirectly gain from this transaction only because he thinks Qualcomm may no longer be able to compete. This is very speculative, IMO.


Hmmm ... I think, at least my take on this, minus the "hysteria" in the way the article is written is this ...

Bottom line is the United States will lose a MAJOR company that and I quote:

"world leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies. Qualcomm ideas and inventions have driven the evolution of digital communications, linking people everywhere more closely to information, entertainment and each other."

That sounds pretty important to me, since even the next generation of military communications will have some 5G aspect in it.
To lose this company to another country possibly can affect our nation security whether they are friend or foe.

Singapore is a friend yes and English is taught in their schools,, but lets not think it is the United States of America. The same party has been in power since 1959, ummm ... we can say they dont exactly have Freedom of the Press as we know it.
But forget all that, I think and I stress the word THINK. That this might be more about losing a huge global technology company, one that we rely on, to the rest of the world and to a USA friendly country but also to a China friendly country.

IT would not be outside the realm of thinking, once in Singapore China could then buy up the company that just bought Qualcomm, more or less, once outside our borders we lose control of what seems important to the US military.

We lose control of this company that seems to figure in deeply as to national security communications systems and what we do not know is if there is USA company that can replace it.
 
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Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
The president blocked the acquisition.


While I didn't buy into the hysteria, this is still one of the few things he's done I agree with, it would simply make Broadcom too big of a company, and too close to a monopoly. Competition is good.
 
Yup, Our President just made sure Qualcomm is going to remain an American company under American regulations and control.

To allow it to become foreign owned and out of our control would reveal what it knows about our secret communications systems, as well as future systems used to defend our country.
 
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