[aprssig] OT: Yaesu to release digital amateur radio gear

[Amateur Radio WB8NUT]

If DVSI increases the prices of the Codecs by a factor of ten, they will 
not sell any large quantities of AMBE chips. This would eventually force 
DVSI into bankruptcy because they would not have enough sales to support 
the company's operations. At the bankruptcy sale, amateurs from around 
the world would then pool their money and buy the rights to the AMBE 
chip and make it open source. This would reduce the price of the radios 
now being sold by about $20 per radio making them affordable by all 
amateurs throughout the world. There would then be much rejoicing.

A gratuitous statement can be easily refuted by another gratuitous 
statement.

Steve, I guess all amateurs fearing this scenario must not own or be 
using any cell phones. Virtually every cell phone sold in the United 
States uses technology owned by other companies (for example, Qualcomm). 
The cell phone manufacturers then pay a royalty on each cell phone back 
to the owner of the technology. So far these companies (Qualcomm) have 
not increased their royalties "by a factor of ten" and the possibility 
of that scenario has not stopped anyone from buying cell phones.

I guess many people don't realize it, but the modern radios today are 
filled with proprietary chips. Most being related to the DSP chips in 
our radios. Those proprietary chips have not stopped anyone from buying 
any of those radios.

Finally, if DVSI made huge price increases on their Codecs, I think the 
government might have something to say with an anti-trust action as I am 
quite sure public service agencies (police, fire) would be screaming 
about the price increases to their radios forcing the government to take 
action.

In summary, it will not happen.

Duffy
www.wb8nut.com

On 1/9/12 12:25 AM, Steve Kostecke wrote:
> What if DVSI decides to multiply the price per DIP by a factor of 10? 
> What if DVSI decides to not provide backwards compatibilty in the next 
> generation of AMBE? This mania for a mode which is hostage to one 
> company tells me that far to many people have not learned from our 
> collective experience with Microsoft. It's like watching moths 
> circling a flame.