Found Maurice on the GSTRF thread:
To: +Rocket Scientist (8141 )
From: +Maurice Winn Monday, Nov 1 1999 10:20PM ET
Reply # of 8147
Thanks RS. It was a great trip. A slight oops in my post - should have read <Qualcomm's handsets were always good, so there is every reason for AirTouch to really get things moving in USA. They should sell 10,000 handsets really fast if demand is as good as they claim at $1.50 per minute.>
We [daughter and I] used all types of the Globalstar phones, fixed and mobile, and they were all really good when they were good. The Ericsson and Telit ones were patchy. When they were good, the voice quality was very good and no worries at all, so I'm sure that their problems come into the glitch category, which will be fixed up with a bit of effort.
The Qualcomm handsets, both fixed and mobile were consistently good. Anyone would buy them right now based on connectivity and call quality. Size, cost, battery life and other stuff will still put off a lot of people. But where coverage is the big issue, such as the Winnebago crowd out in the wild, they'll sell heaps.
Sorry if my post seemed excessively negative. I still own all my shares, will buy more if I get a bargain and am completely confident. My concern is the opportunity cost. It seems Globalstar might as well be great rather than just really really profitable. They might as well skoosh the ICO competition and this other thing which has just appeared, before they get off the drawing board.
Globalstar has the opportunity to do it by canceling the baby's bottom soft launch and go for the charging rhinocerus hard launch. The pussy-footing around being all prissy and not repeating mistakes isn't urgent enough.
The Vodafone Australia 'don't cannibalize our GSM business' approach is a real pain. That's the sort of thinking which gets killed in The Innovator's Dilemma situations. Charles Schwab realized they'd make more money by simply going for the Web financial securities business even if it cannibalized their archaic systems.
Since the legacy Vodafone GSM networks will be superseded in a couple of years with 3G, they are going to have to start selling cdmaOne Globalstar handsets then anyway. They better choose cdma2000 too, or risk lack of compatibility with Globalstar handsets in their terrestrial networks.
They are only aiming at 100,000 Globalstar customers anyway in the first few years. That's small compared with their existing GSM subscriber base. Okay, they'll lose some terrestrial minutes to cdmaOne competitor networks, but they'll sell handsets, making heaps of profit on those, they'll make a good monthly fee on the Globalstar service availability and charge like a wounded bull for the Globalstar minutes used which might be quite high for people out of reach of terrestrial.
I think they have adopted a short-sighted strategy and will not do as well as they might have. Unfortunately, they take Globalstar and Qualcomm down with them while they goof around waiting for another 3 months for GSM handsets.
They should run 10,000 Globalstar subscribers through their spreadsheets again and include the handset sale profit, the monthly service fee and huge minute prices. Many of those 10,000 will be new subscribers who don't have any cellular service now since they are remote, so it would be new minutes used.
Their terrestrial profits per customer will be small by comparison.
My bet is that they are shooting themselves in the foot, costing themselves customers and profits.
When they introduce 3G in a couple or three years, they'll get most of those terrestrial customers back anyway since they'll still be on the Globalstar network. They'll have to change quickly to 3G or see all their terrestrial business swap over to cdmaOne and cdma2000. Then they won't have Globalstar customers OR terrestrial customers. Not such a good strategy.
Best to give customers what they want rather than adopt the Lars Ramqvist "We will deny them their request" sales strategy. Soon, there will be somebody die in Australia who could have been saved by a Qualcomm Globalstar phone. Vodafone are going to look stupid then! "Well, yes, they could have been saved by Globalstar, but we didn't want them making cdmaOne calls if they were in cities with cdmaOne networks."
The sudden switcheroo from GSM networks to cdmaOne bamboozled them. For years Australia was going to switch to GSM in Y2K. Now suddenly they have got cdmaOne all over them! Feel sorry for OneTel which is still in the process of building a new GSM network which will be obsolete the day they turn it on!
Vodafone should pull their fingers out, get a swarm of cdmaOne/Globalstar phones and start selling now! They'll make a fortune.
On ICO, I can't be too dog-in-the-manger because the same argument applies. Since there won't be Globalstar coverage in NZ for years, there will people who could be saved by an ICO phone. And cheaper than Globalstar can provide service in NZ because a gateway here will never enjoy the subscriber base that a gateway in Australia will enjoy and ICO doesn't need a gateway in NZ. They could use one in Australia to cover the whole South West Pacific. That means the minutes can be much cheaper than Globalstar for NZ.
Globalstar could head ICO off by using the wasted minutes in the first few years to subsidize marginal gateways and make them economic, but they have no intention of doing that as far as I can tell. So ICO will enjoy a large competitive advantage in some areas.
Let's see what GlobalstarUSA can do in the mobiles. That's the biggie for Globalstar. Fixed in Asia will be big too and will use a lot of minutes per phone.
Maurice
PS: Sorry I missed you Limtex, at Telecom99. I didn't see anyone with a reindeer antler hat either so I guess Tero didn't show. I felt sorry for Iridium and couldn't bring myself to try their phones out [I've used one before]. Of course they would have committed themselves to their huge display and site long ago so couldn't do much other than carry on with it. I saw Ellipso carrying on with their stand though the lack of crowds at their site showed there isn't much interest in their wishful thinking. ICO was hoping too, with nice pretend handsets. There was a lot of wishful thinking, prototypes and stuff all over the show.
The crowds liked the real stuff, such as Qualcomm Globalstar phones!
There were masses of frustrated people who couldn't get a cellphone connection too, so the "CURRENT PRICE IS ...." variable pricing plans are not being used anywhere yet. The first companies to do it will make a fortune as their network utilization shoots up and customer frustration goes zooming down and profits zoom up and churn zooms down.
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