Nokia’s challenges, like those of its main rivals, are complex and multi-faceted, and cannot be assigned to any one decision or setback. However, the failure of its strategy to develop a homegrown base station system-on-chip (SoC) has taken center stage in the analysis of the company’s sharp loss of market value over the past year, the departure of its CEO, and the reports that it is “exploring strategic options”. Certainly, the chip decision has proved fateful. Initially, it seemed positive that Nokia was doubling down on its long history of developing chipsets for its infrastructure inhouse. There is a general trend, after a period when vendors were tending to save cost by using merchant chips for more of their products,…