OXFORD, United Kingdom, and TOKYO—An agreement made last year between Siemens and Toshiba to co-develop a wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) handset has been “deferred.” Siemens, which claimed the project had never been a joint venture anyway, said the two firms decided it was more important to focus on their domestic markets.
The collapse of the project will leave Siemens with little option but to forge ahead with its own third-generation (3G) handset development or drop out of the race. Insiders said the joint deal fell apart after Toshiba indicated a reluctance to transfer its mobile-phone technology to the German company. The Japanese firm has denied this, and said that further cooperation between the two companies may be in the offing. However, Toshiba announced recently that it plans to resell Taiwanese-made handsets in Europe to boost sales beyond Japan and the United States.
This failure to keep the deal together is being viewed as a significant blow to Siemens, which is struggling to maintain its position as a top-five cell-phone manufacturer. Alcatel, which had similar ambitions, has failed to keep its place and seems resigned to not finding a technology partner for its 3G developments.
Toshiba won an order from Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo for a visual phone handset for its FOMA 3G service and has been developing the handset. Based on the alliance with Siemens, which has deep knowledge of GSM technology, Toshiba aimed at developing the dual-mode handset using the strengths of both firms.
A Toshiba spokesman told Global Wireless on Friday that the firm may develop the dual-mode 3G handset by itself or seek an alliance with another vendor.
