Hi Aj, Without getting bogged down in Globalstar, which you can find in archives under "CDMA - Globalstar", and "Satellite Stock Qcom etc", Qualcomm is a brains trust. During the 1980s, they conceived Globalstar with Loral. They didn't have the money of course, so established the idea etc for the usual conceptualizer/promoter shareholding as well as some design and production contracts. People like me thought they knew what they were doing [I can light skyrockets, but the wires usually fall off before they get really high] so gave them my money to get on with the job. More precisely, I gave them somebody else's money, that's how confident I was.
I'd prefer Qualcomm to burn no cash even though it is starting up. They needed to invest in CDMA pcs/cellular hardware production because otherwise it might simply have been left on the shelf. If no competitors, then they could make heaps being the main supplier, but it looks like every serious telecom producer including Ericsson are flat out on it. They wanted the position in Qualcomm Personal Electronics to benefit from Sony's expertise, marketing power, capital etc. It all makes absolutely excellent sense and people in MBA programs will be taught about it as an example of moving an idea from zero to huge success in the face of apparently insuperable odds.
The Eudora aspect seems to be opportunistic, and not so related, but a great success too. There is a very large software component to the CDMA side, so Eudora is not a strange aspect and could turn out very important judging from web growth and email mania.
Omnitracs is of course the original money generating business, which has also been nothing short of an enormous success. All are CDMA.
So Qualcomm doesn't take positions in others, it creates others from thin air and intellect. The business process of the 21st century - Tom is no doubt studying it for his courses
Maurice |
