Chris, I agree. Globalstar share price is certainly lower than it would have been if investors had more information. We discount a business about which we are ignorant. I have no idea about a lot of things Globalstar is doing and what they have said conflicts with what they have done. Credibility is an even more important issue than ignorance. Lack of trust makes investors run a mile.
Also, it's true that the management of a company has to make the decisions, but to not listen to other, free, ideas seems utterly perverse. Sure, management can't spent time listening to loopy ideas but a company without a mechanism of finding, filtering, analyzing and using good ideas wherever they come from is not long for this world.
So, I wonder how the minutes of use graph is coming along on globalstar.com
Gee, no comment. I guess things must be really terrible in Globalstar if they won't say what's happening, why and when.
There was a little bit of money raised the other day so the company could stay in business. If the share price had been $40 instead of $25, existing shareholders would not have lost value. Fewer shares could have been sold to raise the necessary cash.
I don't think every little detail of business needs to be published. But it should be if there is readership for the information, and the cost of providing it is tiny and there is no corporate risk result [such as a melanin-deficient male employee helping himself to coffee before a junior person of gender or high melanin DNA, which could be considered a gross breach of human rights, sexual harrassment and racism worthy of a $1bn lawsuit]
Patiently waiting. Roll on Y2K.
I reckon the service providers are deliberately marking time until the 48 satellites are fully-positioned and the clock starts ticking on their regional exclusivity. They want to ensure they can easily meet their contractual business plan subscriber numbers. So, delay is better.
Once again, Qualcomm management was right to wait until COD orders are received from service providers. There is no warehouse full of rotting Globalstar handsets. GoQGo. Qualcomm will be able to squeeze the companies once the scramble for handsets begins and Q! will capture a larger share of the minute value [allegedly $1.50 per minute] rather than the greedy, slow and incompetent service providers grabbing the lion's share.
Greedy - charging excessively. Globalstar LP only gets 45c per minute. Service Providers plan on getting $1 a minute for themselves yet they put up no capital other than a bit of staff training, some handsets, a gateway or two, offices, phones and advertising. LP capital spent is about $4bn. Service Providers capital is at most $1bn including all that stuff. How come they charge so much.
Slow - they have had a constellation they could use for much of the day for 3 months now. They were supposed to launch services on 15 November but that day snoozed past. They have had an extra year to get ready [due to Zenit crash and stuff] and they still don't have all their billing systems ready. Now they are thinking of some time next year for start of service.
Incompetent - apart from that stuff, their Web pages are poor quality and out of date. The staff are reported as not knowing what's going on when questioned about service, how it works and all that. Their marketing plans will NOT result in a very rapid rollout of service and maximized profits. ICO and Iridium are getting a chance to recover with Craig McCaw support when they could have been undercut and shut down leaving Globalstar with the mobile market. Some viciously competitive predatory pricing would have seen happy customers, happy shareholders, happy suppliers, happy staff, and very, very rapid market development.
Okay, back to sleep mode. Wake me when some Service Providers look conscious.
Maurice |
