In a laughable court case brewing, Nokia is looking to ban wifi from Blackberry devices. Are we being punk’d, or maybe I need to do my history on WiFi (but I’m sure Nokia has nothing to do with it). Nokia says if RIM continues to use WiFi on their devices they would like some royalties.
In unfortunate timing for RIM, a Swedish arbitrator ruled that the company cannot manufacture or sell products with WLAN standard, also known as Wi-Fi, unless it pays Nokia royalties. Nokia has in turn filed cases in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom to further block BlackBerry sales until RIM pays up.
Considering that most of RIM’s BlackBerry phones use the 802.11 wireless LAN standard, a block on these devices would devastate an already falling company. BlackBerry is losing market share at increasing speed and trying to launch its new BB10 platform in an iOS- and Android-dominated market. And now that there’s also the nascent Windows Phone, which Nokia champions, to compete with, any impediment to sales will significantly hurt RIM.
[Wired]
