Time To Sell The Stadium?
3/5/1 17:51 (New York)
Opinion By John Sullivan
Well thank heavens we're not in a recession or anything. That's the word
according to New York-based private business group the Conference Board, which
says its index of economic indicators shows us in rebound mode, and no recession
is on the horizon. Apparently we're just "muddling along" right now without
actually "dipping into recession."
Well, I sure feel better.
I'm sure Texas Instruments [TI] feels better too. Maybe now it won't
have to start idling microchip plants because of reduced demand, primarily from
the wireless industry. TI has announced plans to shut down three plants for
periods of one to two weeks, and start cutting work hours at other plants.
Lucent [LU] surely feels a lot better. Its stock is getting to the point
where I may just cash in my 401(k), buy the whole thing and take it private.
Hey, I've already got a better credit rating. Even Lucent's attempt to spin off
its optical components business as Agere Systems Inc. is running into trouble.
Lucent's had to change the terms of its IPO twice in a week, increasing the
number of shares offered and lowering its asking price, thus slashing Agere's
impending market valuation.
Motorola's [MOT] issuing lower profit warnings and saying it may take a
loss this quarter. Ericsson's [ERICY] saying it will have to cut infrastructure
prices. Everybody's stock is tanking. The Industry Standard has filed 20
lawsuits against a who's who of Internet companies that it claims haven't paid
for advertisements. The CueCat barcode scanner is "not catching on with
consumers" despite the fact that they basically give it away for free. Internet
rumor has it that idealab CEO Bill Gross has put the $38 million jet he just
bought up for sale.
Heaven help us if we actually "dip into recession." What's left to
crash?
This whole mess is depressing, but at least there's the amusing idea of a
nation full of stadiums with incomprehensible names. Remember a couple years
ago when all these unknown tech and dot-com firms decided the way to make a name
for themselves was to plaster it on a stadium or bowl game? I don't follow
sports, so maybe this has already happened, but I love the idea of a game named
after one defunct company in a stadium named after another one. The pets.com
Oatmeal Bowl, coming to you live from E-Toys Park!
Now 3Com [COMS] is cutting 1,200 jobs. Along with hundreds of thousands
of other layoffs coming from companies across the economic spectrum -- but no
recession, thank goodness -- another 1,200 jobs aren't much to worry about
unless one of them's yours. However, in my world, no company that fires more
than 100 people at a time is allowed to have its name on a stadium. 3Com Field
is now Candlestick Park again. Perhaps if 3Com hadn't felt the need to plaster
its name on a perfectly good piece of public property, it would still have the
money to pay those 1,200 people.
Perhaps the scariest thing about this is that the market still seems to
be waiting for 3G to save us all. Qualcomm [QCOM] briefly lost roughly 25
percent of its value last week after Irwin Jacobs said he didn't think 3G would
be ready in Europe for two or three years. Qualcomm's ever-vigilant PR
department managed to stave off the collapse of western civilization by
explaining the difference between W-CDMA and cdma2000, and we will always owe
them a debt of gratitude for that.
But 25 percent? Based on 3G not hitting the Autobahn next year! For
goodness sake, people, it's not going to happen! If 3G's all that stands
between us and total collapse, we may as well max out our credit cards right now
on freeze-dried food, camping equipment and 30-06 ammo and filter away into the
hills.
Even major industry players like Intel [INTC] are now expressing doubts
about the whole idea. An Intel exec said at the Cannes 3GSM conference that
it's a bad idea for operators to wait for some killer app to magically appear
and justify their massive spectrum expenditures. Separately, Palm [PALM] CEO
Carl Yankowski called 3G "overhyped" and said 250 Kbps can be done with upgrades
to existing networks and is more than enough to meet customer demand. Granted,
Yankowski has an agenda here, but it's hard to argue with him when we can't even
get WAP to fly.
Basically, there's a growing army of laid-off white collar workers that
would rather pillage than starve, the industry's helmsmen are following a
phantom onto the rocks, and my metaphors are getting totally out of hand.
But at least we aren't in a recession.
FOR MORE INFORMATION on this or any other story from Wireless Insider, March 5,
2001, please call Phillips Business Information, Inc.'s Client Service
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Provider ID: WIN0FC07
-0- Mar/05/2001 22:51 GMT |
