QUALCOMM is excited that 3G is rolling out this year and is already running in Korea. It's funny how journalists [who understandably don't understand the arcane world of air interfaces] get the wrong idea. QUALCOMM pointed out that 3G W-CDMA is unlikely to be commercially active before 2005 [or maybe 2004] if the GSM merchants get their act together. W-CDMA is but one version of 3G Fast Internet Wireless Access with voice and highly mobile. That version was always going to be a struggle to produce because the most important part of its design was to stop CDMA by QUALCOMM taking over the GSM area and to get the GSM people in a position to take over everywhere using that W-CDMA technology.
Ooops-a-daisy. Their plans are melting faster than snow in spring.
Meanwhile, QUALCOMM's cdma2000 continues to develop right on schedule and will be ready in 2002. Already, the initial versions are in use in Korea. 3G is here NOW!! NTT claims they will have their W-CDMA initial version ready in May. They won't. Certainly not in commercial form anyway. They might have a trial network going later this year.
So, what is going to happen is that the GSM service providers with their multi$$billion spectrum bids are left with no GPRS [of any speed or efficiency], no EDGE which is bleeding, no W-CDMA. They will soon figure that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and will start installing cdma2000 in the new spectrum.
China will almost certainly go with cdma2000 and so will Korea and they'll take a huge share of the market if others dither around waiting for W-CDMA. Who is going to wait for W-CDMA? Two years [or three or maybe NEVER] is a long time to wait for something which has no advantage whatsoever over cdma2000 which will also incur less royalty cost [half the royalty cost].
Those who sold their QUALCOMM shares at $50 believing the media, who didn't have a clue what they were writing or talking about, are going to regret their foolish decisions. Smart money, which understands the future a bit better, nabbed those 75 million panic-sale shares at cheap prices. That's about $4 billion in sales in one day [ignoring that double-counting business of shares in Nasdaq]. Quite a day.
Financial collapse of 2001? I don't see any reason for it. In fact, I see the contrary. The world is getting better in leaps and bounds every day. Not for everyone of course, but overall and on average and that's what makes the world tick.
The panic in QUALCOMM [like many of the other panics outside the dotcom world] is based on lack of understanding of what's actually happening. But of course the herd is free to panic and sell their shares at low prices to those who think the world will get better. The predators are always the top of the food chain. The herd in panic is not. That is the nature of the herding animals who follow Elliot Waves or Head and Shoulders doomster mysticism.
I expect to see a 16,000 Dow by February 2002
Mqurice
PS: To add fuel to the QUALCOMM barbeque the GSM Guild has just had a meeting and some Intel speaker declared there is a small market for 3G and 3G is unnecessary. [Unsurprisingly since the GSM W-CDMA people don't have the technology to supply it and the GSM merchants are making out like bandits in GSM sales which they want to stay dominant as long as possible].
I should add that Alan Green$pan is my idol. He was never targeting the stockmarkets, other than that they were a driver for Irrational Exuberance and a wild Wealth Effect. Most people aren't feeling much of a Wealth Effect these days and even when the markets start roaring up again, the Wealth Effect will be more circumspect, with the wealth transferred from the maniacal to the more long-term investment types who don't try to spend it all as soon as the stock price goes up. The Poor Effect has been as potent as the Wealth Effect. So now, Alan Green$pan will cut interest rates all through 2001 as the stockmarkets rise. He'll do that because not only will inflationary effects be zero [with oil dropping after being a huge highs] but production and sales will be dropping with the continuing Poor Effect and Irrational Fear.
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