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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates

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To: Eric L who wrote (27006)	7/2/2000 10:15:57 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (2) of 54805

Eric, I found this post of yours... Message 13960396 My interest in smart cards was spurred largely by my favorable experiences while visiting Europe and my interest in SanDisk. I remember chatting with you about a pure play in smart cards, but the discussion basically boiled down to giants like Schlumberger and Gemplus. There didn't seem to be a play there at all. I kept the smart card discussion site bookmarked for two years, but found that the discussion was difficult to follow because of the technical terms that were used and my lack of knowledge in the industry. Your recent post is equally difficult to follow. I attribute that to my lack of due diligence in the area, and not any other reason. Here is a funny story for you... When my father-in-law upgraded his handset last Summer the dealer in Sweden basically said the old handset was worthless (could be sold as a paperweight in a pinch). He did remove a small, cardboard-like chip from behind the battery which apparently had either his subscriber ID information or a couple KB of memory used for storing numbers and names. The dealer pulled it out and installed it in the new handset so he didn't have to reprogram it. My father-in-law was happy he didn't have to chicken peck in all of his data again. Message 13894449 I never knew exactly what a SIM card was until somebody explained it to me. My wife did a translation for a company and it dealt with SIM, but I expected that it was some sort of credit card that slipped into the cell phone and functioned like a key or subscriber ID that activated the cell phone. I did not realize that the SIM has several forms. I read last month in Red Herring that the SIM card will be multifunctional. You can save your unique subscriber ID, your telephone/address list, and even browser software code that will enable your handset to navigate the web when the time comes. Thus, the cards could be designed to be portable and follow you when you upgrade to the latest, greatest Nokia offering. Some have said that the cell phone OEM's would rather eliminate the convenience of modularity and require consumers (or their companies providing the wireless subscription) to foot the cost of a new handset everytime a contract is started or renewed. That seems like a probable scenario, yet the appeal of having removable, portable non-volatile memory is undeniable. It would allow easy software upgrades. It would allow personalization of data. It would serve as a local repository for voice mail messages or a cache for frequently viewed web pages... Also, the portability of a standard memory card in whatever form would reduce production costs and help OEM's avoid difficulties with product launches due to unanticipated component shortages (which would be encountered if embedded memory was left behind in the old handset). I hope in the next few years that SanDisk and the various smart card manufacturers strike a deal to set a de facto standard for a "semi-portable" flash memory/smart card combo. Right now I have difficulty envisioning exactly what form this hybrid card would take and what functionality would be needed. Clearly it won't be flash memory alone and it won't be a designer microprocessor alone either. Ausdauer

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