Apollo, Re: Qualcomm and the BW Big Bang article (minus Qualcomm)
Snips / my comments-
1. Big Bang!
Digital convergence is finally happening -- and that means new opportunities for upstarts and challenges for tech icons.<<<<<
No mention of QCOM, should it be considered an “upstart” or a challenged “tech icon”
2. TV manufacturers in Japan and cell-phone makers in Korea are jerry-rigging their products with microprocessors and software, racing to turn them into a new generation of digit-gobbling, network-ready contraptions. <<<<<<<
Wonder who enables those Korean cell-phone makers?
3. Now, thanks to faster chips, broader bandwidth, and a common Internet standard, technologies are quickly merging. The market for personal digital assistants, so hot in the late '90s, is vanishing as customers get the same functions in a cell phone -- often with a camera to boot.
4. "Digitalization is creating products that can't be categorized as tech or consumer electronics. The walls are coming down."
5. That sets up a collision of three massive industries. In one corner stands the $1.1 trillion computer and software biz, with its American leaders. In another is the $225 billion consumer-electronics sector, with its strong Asian roots and a host of aggressive new Chinese players. The third camp is the $2.2 trillion communications industry, a behemoth that extends from wireless powerhouses in Asia and Europe to the networking stars of Silicon Valley. All three groups will have a hand in building the digital wonders that are headed our way. But none of these industries, much less a single company, can put all the pieces together. They all need help. For this they venture into adjoining territories, where they forge new partnerships and take on new rivals. <<<<<<<
They say no single company can do such? Hmmmm- Integrated MSMs with dual CPUs one being a Ghz variety, cameras, video recorders, 3G Graphics MP3 players, Multicast TV, BREW applications, GPS location services, smart phones/PDAs. Nope no one could be involved in all of that.
6. The result is a Big Bang of convergence, and it's likely to produce the biggest explosion of innovation since the dawn of the Internet.<<,<<
I wonder if that could produce a company with a greater LT growth rate than 15%
7. But a few breakthroughs are sure to take off, giving birth to new tech champions and changing the way we live and work. Hossein Eslambolchi, president of AT&T Laboratories (T ), thinks the changes ahead will be as significant as the advent of commercial aviation in connecting people and communities. "This is going to be the most disruptive period in the past 50 years," he says.
8. The chips and software and network connections that have defined the computer industry are spreading quickly into other domains.<<<<
Wireless too? Chips/software/high speed wireless connectivity, impossible for one company to enable and master all of that.
9. The third leg is the mobile phone and all the goodies it can deliver. Some 55% of Americans now carry cell phones, and the first data services -- radio, photos, and short video clips -- are starting to take off. <<<<
Starting to take off????- Wonder who’s enabling such, couldn’t be an American upstart, could it?
10. As these technologies evolve over the next decade, a new digital world will emerge. Analysts predict that these nascent networks will speed up by an average of 50% a year, the historic norm. That will help the U.S. catch up over the next few years to where the Japanese and Koreans are today -- with far faster broadband and mobile systems that are robust enough for commuters to check for traffic jams and watch soap operas on their cell phones. As networks grow and chips continue to strengthen, companies will work madly to come up with winning products and services. Within the next five years, industry analysts say, practically every machine in the wide realm of communications -- every gadget that sings, talks, beams images, or messages -- will sport a powerful computer and a network connection. And every bit of digital information, whether it's a phone call, a song, a Web page, or a movie, will flow among these machines in the very same river of data.<<<<
“That will help the U.S. catch up over the next few years to where the Japanese and Koreans are today”. Wonder why no U.S. company never had the foresight to expertise to get involved in this stuff??
11. Those who figure out how to reach through the networks to deliver customized information and services will be the architects and kings of the converged economy. Michael Moe, co-founder of ThinkEquity Partners LLC, a San Francisco investment bank, predicts that these people and companies will rise quickly. "Five years from now, it will be over," he says. "The winners will be determined." <<<<
It’ll all be over in five years, that when “the winners will be determined”.
Wonder if ThinkEquity might have a slight clue and be accumulating a “winner” for the preferred clients??
04 01 21 ThinkEuity upgrade and 75 trgt
from briefing.com
12:05 QCOM upgraded to Overweight 2 at ThinkEquity; target $75 (57.75 -1.13)
ThinkEquity raises their rating on Qualcomm to Overweight-2 from Overweight-3 and raises their target to $75 from $50 ahead of tonight's earnings release; firm believes the qtr will be excellent, and guidance for March should be up YoY; also, firm says their caution regarding valuation at the end of last year is giving way to their longer-term view that QCOM is emerging as the top 3G pure play in wireless.
12. The clock is ticking -- pushing companies to hurry into bruising and unformed markets far from their roots and their expertise. The process, as Nokia Corp. (NOK ) can attest, is often humbling. A year ago, the Finnish company created N-Gage, a handheld phone/game-console designed to beat the consumer-electronics champs into a new hybrid market. But its awkward design drew scorn from gamers, and today even Nokia admits the first version was a disappointment. Then there's Intel, AT&T (T ), and IBM, which together backed a Wi-Fi joint venture in 2002 called Cometa Networks Inc. The goal was to link all the Wi-Fi hot spots into one seamless network. But last month, Cometa said it would shut down, <<<<
No winners there.
12 . Precious few companies have made the leap from one generation of technology to the next. Who figured out the PC? Not minicomputer makers, but Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ). Who mastered the Web? Upstarts such as eBay Inc. (EBAY ) and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO ). "Big companies cannot really see beyond their current customer base," says Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MediaLab. "This is why most new ideas come from small companies that have nothing to lose." <<<<<
Interesting, Prof Clayton Christensen thinks along the same line. Sometimes even professors can’t see the trees (QCOM) from the forest.
13. . Chipmakers such as Intel, Texas Instruments, (TXN ) and ST Microelectronics start out on top. <<<<<<<
Yup, CDMA powerhouses one and all????, another good call!!!!
14. Korea's Samsung also seems to be sitting pretty.<<<<
Again, wonder who’s the brains behind that outfit, enabling their wireless products???
15. Tiger Telematics Inc., a Jacksonville (Fla.) maker of global positioning systems, is one example. In the past year, the company has fashioned a potpourri of components from Microsoft, Samsung, and others into a new handheld. The result? A $400 game machine, the Gizmondo, that includes GPS, full-motion video, a music player, and text and photo messaging. Says CEO Michael W. Carrender: "Suddenly we can compete with the Sonys of the world with a best-of-class product." <<<<<<<
$400 for this Gizmondo, and without high speed wireless connectivity. Hmmm, wonder what such a gizmondo with that added feature would go for?
16. Juha Christensen, a former Microsoft executive and president of Macromedia Inc.'s (MACR ) Mobile & Devices Div., expects companies from Sony to Best Buy (BBY ) to promote new subscription services by practically giving away the hardware. "We're within 24 months of a subsidized TV," says Christensen.
17. congealed services." Instead of buying a device, he says, consumers will rent or borrow it and subscribe to just about everything they want: music, movies, software, burglary protection.
18. The future of entire industries could hinge on this jousting over digital rights
19. Executive Steven P. Jobs says a key to succeeding in the converged economy is resisting the temptations to enter certain markets and to know when to say no. "I'm as proud of what we don't do as what we do do," he says. Jobs, for example, nixed calls to enter the cell-phone industry, which has 1.3 billion subscribers today and could reach an estimated 2 billion by 2007, according to In-Stat/MDR. Jobs says the economies of scale are too big for niche players such as Apple. <<<<<<<
Jobs is a wise fellow, who won’t squander billions trying to play catch up in a field in which he has little expertise and is way behind the power curve.
20. Huawei Technologies Co., China's networking leader, is preparing its own line of high-speed smart phones. Why? To be able to sell phone companies a package of networking, data services, and handsets, says William Xu, Huawei's executive vice-president. <<<<
Like Samsung, wonder who enables their underling products???
21. The fact is, it's hard to know. The industry teems with upstarts, and any one of them is capable of rocking industries with just one new idea. Newcomers have defined each stage of the Information Era. And the age of convergence offers perhaps the richest yet. Why? The networks now taking shape will link together more than 1 billion people, not just with words or voices, but with music, video, games, and commerce. A vast chunk of the world economy is going digital -- and for the next few years it's up for grabs. This revolution won't quiet down anytime soon. <<<<<<<<
Sounds exciting - TIGER TELEMATICS- YUP THAT’S THE ONE. Let’s keep it quiet so we can corner the market and make a bundle!!!! |
