SM kept referencing that Q knew how to do stuff, but what Q knows how to do is divest.
It's gotten rid of numerous divisions and products, often just prior to a market surge, while it backed expensive failures like Globalstar.
What does Q do when it gets into trouble? Divest. They have no history of any other action.
Both phones and infrastructure global sales boomed after the sale of the divisions, but Q couldn't capitalize on them, they lacked the practical ability, which is a shame because those were good markets for a while and Q is trying to get back into phones and small cells, but that will probably due now. Regardless, Q doesn't fix floundering divisions, it divests them, I think that is the point that applies.
Please name me one division or business they got rid of right before market surge. Globalstar? No! Omni? No! Infra? No! Handsets? no!
Globalstar was a failure, regardless, but Qualcomm eventually took a write off on it around 2001 when it folded that was significant. Q creative accounting aside, describing Globalstar as anything but a failure is incorrect.
Globalstar was a huge money maker for Qualcomm, even though they swindled the poor customers. Globalstar was a Cost+ contract, which means the company was guaranteed to make money no matter what, and they certainly never lost a penny doing the Globalstar project.
It's all ball bearings nowadays. And bit error rates. Everything is a digital communications problem if you stare at it long enough