Ericsson Hedges Bets, Reluctantly Joins WiMax Forum Just To Sneer

Earlier this year, we wrote about how the "Nordic brush-off" of WiMax was stupid. At the time, Nokia had dropped out of the WiMax forum and Ericsson was saying they had no interest in joining. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why: WiMax, if it actually did do all those things its promoters claimed it would do (a big, big "if"), then it had the potential to eat into both companies' 3G equipment plans. What was stupid about it was that, with the amount of hype surrounding WiMax, having Nokia and Ericsson stay out wouldn't slow it down at all -- it would just mean they had no say in what happened. However, soon afterwards, Nokia came back into the fold (it's amazing what a little pressure from Intel can do). Now it's been announced that Ericsson has reluctantly caved as well, joining the forum while going on and on about how WiMax really isn't that cool, but they were feeling lonely hanging out on the anti-WiMax side of the room. At least now, both companies will be able to monitor the advancement of WiMax to see if it really does do some of those things we've been promised.

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