Imagine a big ocean going ship. The cook has a tiff with his girlfiend and goes berserk and runs to the engine room and uses his sharpest knives to destroy the electrical system. The engine dies but the momentum of the ship will keep it going for many miles. When it finally stops it will be at the mercy of the wind and the waves.
In Qualcomm's case the equivalent of the berserk cook is the H-1B and the royalty stream is the momentum.
The major cell phone manufacturers are all vertically integrated companies and are designing both modem and application processors. It is only a matter of time before they switch to their own chips. Qualcomm will be the stalled ship unless it diversifies its product line. The present management is like Nero fiddling when Rome was burning. They were busy lining their pockets with kickbacks from H-1B hiring that they failed to see the sand shifting under them.
Qualcomm needs a thorough revamping and it needs to back to the company it was before the misguided H-1B binge. It needs a turn around CEO - a Gerstner or Alan Mullaly. Gerstner rescued IBM and Mullaly Ford. Gerstner is too old now and probably would not be interested. Gerstner's successors went the H-1B way and IBM is once more in decline. The board of directors should go to Mullaly and plead with him on bended knee to take on a two year role as CEO to right the ship and arrest the descent to prevent Qualcomm from becoming another DEC.