Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part

Max Chafkin and Ian King, reporting for Bloomberg Businessweek:

It’s based in part on court documents filed as part of a dispute over one of the most expensive and, arguably, most important parts of the phone: the wireless modem. The story starts two summers ago, at a conference in Idaho, where a senior Apple executive, probably Cook, and a senior Samsung Electronics Co. executive, most likely Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee, shared a quiet word. […]

At the conference in Idaho, according to documents Qualcomm filed earlier this year, Apple saw an opportunity to put itself in front of investigators. Qualcomm claims that at the event — almost certainly the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, which both Cook and Lee attended — the Apple executive urged Samsung to pressure South Korean antitrust regulators to intensify an investigation into Qualcomm that had been open since 2014. “Get aggressive,” the Apple executive said, according to Qualcomm’s filing, adding that this would be the “best chance” to get Qualcomm to lower its prices.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

★ Friday, 6 October 2017