Maurice - Yes, I went to the Talk. Very interesting, although not many specifics on WirelessKnowledge.
The purpose of the talk was really directed to promoting the San Diego Telcom Council, a new organization designed to promote the Telcom (particularly wireless) industry in San Diego. I believe that this directly stems from an article a while ago in one of the big U.S. weekly magazines (Time, U.S. News and World Report, NewsWeek) which listed the best cities for a new high tech business to locate in the United States. San Diego, much to the constipation of our local newspaper and politicians, was not listed. San Diego wants to be to wireless what Palo Alto and region is to computers (Silicon Valley). We also have a high concentration of Biotech firms.
Apparently some of the local high tech companies have trouble recruiting the best engineers who want to be "where the action is", and where they can jump from company to company without having to sell their house. Thus this effort to promote the perception that San Diego is the place to be if you are an engineer, particularly in Wireless.
The presentation itself had several speakers, including the mayor of San Diego, all saying what a great idea it was to have this organization. Irwin Jacobs, probably the man most responsible for the Wireless industry explosion in San Diego, an entertaining speaker, and very popular in the area for his charitable contributions, was a natural choice to be the main speaker.
So what did Dr. Jacobs say? He gave an excellent summary of the history of Qualcomm, from the time he decided to form a part time consulting business as a side from teaching, to the formation and history of Linkabit and then Qualcomm. There was one particulary interesting chart showing 33 different companies which can be traced back to Linkabit, his original company, from either spinoffs, or from individuals who left and started their own companies.
He particularly emphasized how several technologies had been developed with little idea of what the eventual applications would be. He told one especially amusing story (with obviously intentional parallels to those who said CDMA would never work) about a government project which was bid on by several companies, including Linkabit. The requirements were a wish list of things which had never been done before, and were supposed to fit into a very small package. After the various presentations had been made, one of the other CEOs approached him and said "Is it true that you were able to make the size specification?" Irwin said "Yes, that is true". Then the other CEO asked "and you were able to meet (one other very hard specification)?", to which Irwin said "Yes, we did". The other CEO then exploded "You are a liar! Those specifications are impossible!"
He briefly covered his vision of the future of the industry, which included wireless data, but did not give many details.
That Maurice, is a long answer to a short question!
Great investing to all,
Steve |
