Motorola Spins Off Semiconductor Business

[ftaok]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Here's an easy way to look at it. The contract between Apple and Moto needn't have specified the G5 project. It could have simply stated that Moto would not discontinue the next-generation processor development without giving Apple one year notice. Whether that development was for the G4, G5 or G6 wouldn't matter. The point would be that Apple would be in a position of dependence on Moto, and would demand a certain level of contractual commitment from Moto. It, in no way, seems unreasonable to me.

Aggghhh!

This type of contract cannot exist. It's the one years notice thing that makes it impossible to honor.

Let's say that there was such a contract. All Motorola would have to do to avoid being sued is to "pretend" to develop G5s, G6s, whatever after telling Apple that they intend to stop development. How does that help Apple or Moto?

This type of contract couldn't have existed because there's no way to honor it.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by ftaok
Aggghhh!

This type of contract cannot exist. It's the one years notice thing that makes it impossible to honor.

Let's say that there was such a contract. All Motorola would have to do to avoid being sued is to "pretend" to develop G5s, G6s, whatever after telling Apple that they intend to stop development. How does that help Apple or Moto?

This type of contract couldn't have existed because there's no way to honor it.

In order to do what you claim, Moto would have to do more than just "pretend". They'd also have to modify their books to show that they were still investing in R&D of the new chip. That is highly illegal.

No way to honor such a contract? That's just BS. Companies keep records, and it's a simple matter to demostrate that development is continuing to a client.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Are either of you lawyers?

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Are either of you lawyers?

I'm not, but I worked with one on a contract that required a certain level of commitment to an R&D project at one of my previous jobs. As I recall, we were committed to spend no less than 500 man-hours over the course of three months on R&D for this project. For this particular project, we came to the conclusion that it was unlikely to get the desired results in the allotted time. Should we have just pretended to work on it after that? No, that would have been a violation of the contract.

In that case, when we reached the end of the three months (totalling something around 650 hours), and we didn't have the results, our client authorized further work on the project. But they just as easily could have dropped the project at that point, or taken the results we had to another vender to continue the work. If we had pretended to work, it would have been obvious.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
I'm not, but I worked with one on a contract that required a certain level of commitment to an R&D project at one of my previous jobs. As I recall, we were committed to spend no less than 500 man-hours over the course of three months on R&D for this project. For this particular project, we came to the conclusion that it was unlikely to get the desired results in the allotted time. Should we have just pretended to work on it after that? No, that would have been a violation of the contract.

In that case, when we reached the end of the three months (totalling something around 650 hours), and we didn't have the results, our client authorized further work on the project. But they just as easily could have dropped the project at that point, or taken the results we had to another vender to continue the work. If we had pretended to work, it would have been obvious.

As someone who knows what he's talking about, you win the argument 🙂

 

[Gyroscope]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
An interesting point, here, is the fact that the total unit sales of Mac compatible systems was, essentially, stable during that period. The reason that Apple cancelled the clones was because they were loosing sales. So, I don't see that the cancelling of the clones would really have any effect on Moto, as they weren't really loosing any chip sales.

Yeah but, the purpose of CHRP was to increase its market share as hardware reference platform for possibly more than just one OS (MacOS 7). In those days Apple market share (even without clones) was declining rapidly, think it was arount 5.X % at the time clones were killed. MacOS 7 was needed by CHRP clone makers as OS to run on new boxes simplu because there wasn't really that many other OS'es available for PPC. BeOs was still in early stages and wasn't considered to be ready for prime time. Microsoft killed its PPC NT version adding another nail into PPC future prospects. So when Apple killed clones, it wasnt so much about losing CPU sales(Motorola would ship them to Apple anyway) (ok they could make little more profit by selling whole combo) but rather losing steam and market potential that CHRP could have established in order to compete with x86 (Intel,AMD..)
So,Motorola figured out that now CHRP was dead, Apple was sinking anyway so they decided that they gonna pull outta PC chip business altogether in few years time.

 

[ftaok]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
I'm not, but I worked with one on a contract that required a certain level of commitment to an R&D project at one of my previous jobs. As I recall, we were committed to spend no less than 500 man-hours over the course of three months on R&D for this project. For this particular project, we came to the conclusion that it was unlikely to get the desired results in the allotted time. Should we have just pretended to work on it after that? No, that would have been a violation of the contract.

In that case, when we reached the end of the three months (totalling something around 650 hours), and we didn't have the results, our client authorized further work on the project. But they just as easily could have dropped the project at that point, or taken the results we had to another vender to continue the work. If we had pretended to work, it would have been obvious.

Snowy,

Your situation isn't comparing Apples with Oranges. Your contract states that your company had to spend at least 500 hours over 3 months. That's the contract and that's what you did. Just because preliminary work showed that you wouldn't get results doesn't mean that something could happen to change that.

The "contract" between Moto and Apple says that Moto was supposed to give Apple a one-year heads up if they were gonna kill the G5 project. This is different because Moto cannot know a year in advance that they would kill the project.

Moto would have never agreed to such a contract. If they did, the shareholders would have their heads. Since Moto canned the G5 project a long time ago, and Apple has yet to file suit, I contend that such a contract never existed.

Are either of you lawyers?

Phil,

I'm no lawyer, but I like to think of myself as a purveyor of common sense. 😉

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by ftaok
Phil,

I'm no lawyer, but I like to think of myself as a purveyor of common sense. 😉

Unfortunately, the law and common sense are not always the same.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by ftaok
Snowy,

Your situation isn't comparing Apples with Oranges. Your contract states that your company had to spend at least 500 hours over 3 months. That's the contract and that's what you did. Just because preliminary work showed that you wouldn't get results doesn't mean that something could happen to change that.

The "contract" between Moto and Apple says that Moto was supposed to give Apple a one-year heads up if they were gonna kill the G5 project. This is different because Moto cannot know a year in advance that they would kill the project.

Moto would have never agreed to such a contract. If they did, the shareholders would have their heads. Since Moto canned the G5 project a long time ago, and Apple has yet to file suit, I contend that such a contract never existed.

Actually, I'd beg to differ. Let's try making the comparison a little more realistic. Moto agreed that they would apply X hours per year to new processor development, and would give Apple a one year notice before discontinuing this development. Apple, in return, agreed to purchase a minimum of X processors per year from Moto, for as long as the new processor development is going on. This situation is not that different than the one I described. Apple gets a committed processor developer, and Moto get a guarantied customer.

Bear in mind that this is hypothetical. I don't know what the contract is like between Apple and Moto. But this is a perfectly reasonable contract template, and it is similar to the contract that I was part of some years back.

Phil,

I'm no lawyer, but I like to think of myself as a purveyor of common sense. 😉

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Unfortunately, the law and common sense are not always the same.

I'd have to agree with Phil on this one.