QCOM is in this predicament for 2 reasons:
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QCOM did not foresee the importance of 64bit parts and did not have an immediate answer for the A7. QCOM went from leading node SOC to scrambling to be relevant.
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The response to the A7 was the 810 part, and that was a disaster.
This was a 1-2 punch that QCOM has not recovered from yet. Stagnant stock price, chip overheating drama, design losses/changes, JANA partners, poor earnings, licensing woes, Apple lawsuit, NXP merger delays and finally Broadcom hostile bid. All who were are part of the decision making for the above blunders and the terrible engineering effort in response should have been let go immediately. unfortunately, they are all (mostly) still with QCOM.
Maybe we should be voting the blue card...