For a brief moment it seemed like Broadcom was digging their heels in and going after Qualcomm in a bid to acquire the company. Unfortunately the US government has since stepped in to block their bid, citing national security as a concern. However we had heard that despite this, Broadcom had plans to fight the block, but not anymore.
According to a report from Bloomberg, it seems that Broadcom could be formally abandoning their plans to acquire Qualcomm. The announcement is said to be made later today so we guess we’ll have to wait and see. That being said, it would have been interesting to see what the mobile landscape could look like if Broadcom were to be successful.
Qualcomm had initially resisted Broadcom’s attempts to acquire the company, but later it appeared that they were softening up and seemed to be open to the idea. However like we said, this did not matter as the US government had decided to block Broadcom’s bid. Apparently there are concerns about Broadcom’s close ties with Chinese communication companies, and that Broadcom’s acquisition of Qualcomm could give these companies an unfair competition.
Interestingly enough there have also been reports that Intel could be interested in acquiring Broadcom. Whether or not that will go through now that Broadcom is no longer bidding on Qualcomm is unclear.
Filed in . Read more about Broadcom, Legal, Qualcomm and SoC.