Why doesn't Qualcomm buy Motorola's mobile phone business? It's available, well soon to be, after Motorola's decision to spin off its mobile phone business.
Qualcomm has the cash - around $11bn in the bank at the end of January - and it has the ambition, to be the leading technology brand in the mobile phone market.
So would it make sense for Qualcomm, the holder of so many fundamental 3G WCDMA patents, to own a handset business? On the face of it, no.
Many of its customers are handsets makers, and to buy Motorola's handset business would be seen as a very aggressive move by Qualcomm.
But think again. It is just possible that such a move would be attractive to Qualcomm, which is already at legal loggerheads with so many of its handset-making customers.
Qualcomm has always maintained that IP royalties and chips are its business and that it has no desire to get into making handsets.
But it would be tempting for the San Diego company to send a shock wave through the Nokia Board room in Helsinki.
That is what would happen if Qualcomm did buy Motorola's mobile phone business. For it would raise the very real possiblity for one company to dominate the mobile market in a way hither to not seen.
In the way that one company has control of ket technology from teh siliocn to the end product, and even the software which runs on it, would resemble IBM in the mainframe market or indeed Intel in the consumer PC market.
Now surely, that has got to be be an attractive proposition for the boys from San Diego?
So if Qualcomm is serious about dominating the mobile phone market in the next decade then it will buy Motorola's handset business. It is as simple as that.
The opportunity is too good to miss.
If Qualcomm decides not to buy then we will be able to say: "Come off it Qualcomm, you're not serious about dominating the mobile market. You had your chance and you blew it."
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