>are you still in QCOM and have you heard anything on QCOM/WIND's projects?
George Gilder presented his views on "Regulating the Telecosm" at the Cato Institute last spring, from which the following was lifted:
"There's been a flaw in the technology of microprocessors, the technology of sand. To get an idea of its abundance, it's worth remembering that a silicon chip is made up of the three most common substances in the crust of the earth - silicon, oxygen, and aluminum. But there is a flaw and I like to sum it up by telling the story of the car in the jungle. If you encountered an automobile in the middle of the jungle, you might regard it as quite an impressive technology, particularly if you'd never seen an automobile before. It has heat, light, air conditioning, radio communications, a big back seat, and even a loud horn to frighten off fierce animals. You might never imagine in contemplating this car in the jungle, however, that the real magic of automobiles comes in conjunction with roads. For the last 30 years or so, we've mostly used our computers like cars in the jungle. We've been using desktop-oriented applications, without ever realizing that the real magic of computers comes in conjunction with networks. Of course, we've had local area networks - LANs - but at LAN's end is a communications cliff and a bandwidth scandal, and you're back to the heavily regulated 4-kilohertz jungle of the telephone wires. The 43 million tons of copper that the regional Bell operating companies command is, I believe, essentially a copper cage. It prevents us from effectively developing the new technologies that really will define the new cellular device - the CDMA spread-spectrum personal computer."
George's CDMA spread-spectrum personal computer is contained in our EID. The EID needs ubiquitous communications, telephone wired, hard-wired, wireless, electric power based communications - anything as long as it communicates. By using the CDMA modifier, George is merely emphasizing that the lion's share of future communications needed by EIDs will be wireless, and CDMA at that.
I agree with George about cars in jungles and we agree that wireless will explode, ultimately vastly more for data communications than for voice. but in general, my position is more flexible than his about specifics - no doubt because of my ignorance of the underlying technologies. Once CDMA survived production roll-outs, I took the position that CDMA will garner a significant piece of wireless communications, but not necessarily the whole banana. That significant piece is sufficient to give QCOM, with its awesome synergy and the intellectual owner of the CDMA property, a franchise of stupendous value. Accordingly, I established a stock position in the company of sufficient size that I will feel duly compensated in future when QCOM begins to realize its potential more fully. Since then, there has never been a reason to sell, and I doubt there ever will be - although the ride will be bumpy.
As microprocessors come in conjunction with communications, spawning EIDs, the results will not only benefit CDMA, probably GSM and other communication technologies, but they will push WIND to unbelievable heights. This is the relationship between QCOM and WIND that will prove to be more important than even I2O, not any particular contract in place today. You are correct in not thinking of wireless as just voice communications, and handsets as just portable telephones. As George also said in his presentation, "Another amazing thing that happened recently was that for the first time data bits outnumbered voice bits in the telephone networks."
You should also recognize that WIND should benefit similarly from GSM providers, and indeed VxWorks is commonplace in GSM infrastructure equipment. In fact, being more mature, GSM has more available in data communications currently than CDMA, and I suspect many GSM-based EID's are in development. I wouldn't be surprised if Geoworks reconstituted its GEOS OS as an application sitting on top of VxWorks, essentially out-sourcing all low-level communications and real-time OS requirements that may occur with advanced usage, along the lines of the recently announced Adobe deal.
For the record, WIND announced it is helping QCOM flesh out the Globalstar infrastructure and satellite handsets, all due to be installed and tested next year, and then rolled out into production. However, as all wireless handsets increase functional complexity, and as 32-bit microprocessors and advanced DSPs become both needed and practical, WIND should obtain more than its fair share of traditional handset design wins as well. It would appear the Q phone adds enough functionality to require a powerful RTOS, and if not, then the next generation will. All this portends wonderful things for WIND, but its at the point where there is conjunction between the microprocessor and communications, the EID, not just portable telephones, that WIND will benefit hugely.
Allen |
