Not a dumb question at all. But the answer depends on who you ask. GSM's success could be very short lived here, though. Right now it has advantages of higher quality, cheaper phones. Also, I think the AT&T network (TDMA, right?) is boosting subscriber number with their attractive rate plan.
Anyway, it is all this uncertainty that is keeping QCOM's stock down. But many issues should be resolved. ERICY is completely dead in the water with their 3G solution. They don't have the patents, there is damaging evidence that they conspired to keep CDMA-ONE out of Europe that could be used against them if necessary, and meanwhile, they just lost backing from 11 of their major partners who had been backing W-CDMA.
And no matter what happens, QCOM stands to be one of the first, if not the first, to market with a complete 3G solution.
There is a lot of hype with internet stocks now, but you figure that QCOM will be throw in this group in about 2 years. Their upcoming products based on CDMA will allow for high speed internet via wireless smartphones (their PDQ, coming 1H '99) and Palm Pilots.
Exciting company. Cheap stock.
Brian |
