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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gdichaz who wrote (2628)	6/14/1999 1:34:00 PM
From: chaz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

Uncle Frank: I too have been quietly watching the discussions surrounding GM's putdown of Q, including Mike's very thoughtful commentary, GDI's protests, and so on. GM's position that the Wintel example may preclude the formation of future G's gave me pause....why then did he write, or help wirte, the book? Mike may have the same question formed in a different way. To my mind, this ever so clearly illustrates that every serious technology investor absolutely needs to become near "expert" in his stock choices, and that he should reserve judgement in those areas where he has not done so. Further, and essentially so, it illustrates the very great value we have right here in the thread you've established. We are a small group, in no way able to confir G-dom on any company. The companies we watch and study must execute, and the chains in which they operate must as well, for that to happen. The G's and those to come are like the immortals, we're just the watchers....and this thread is populated by some of the most intelligent watchers I've ever come across....smart enough to question the profs. I don't doubt that GM monitors us. His effort dramatically altered my thinking about investing, and for that I do thank him. This thread has only made it better, and for that I thank you all.

To: gdichaz who wrote (2628)	6/15/1999 1:43:00 PM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

I'm going to come to Mr. Moore's defense. He didn't say that QCOM would be a poor investment or an unsuccessful company, just that it probably doesn't meet the gorilla criteria. I think he is right about this. QCOM has no proprietary control over CDMA, it had to give this up to get CDMA established as a standard. There are no major switching cost penalties, and they don't control the architecture. Without these, there is no gorilla even if the 2 other criteria of discontinuity and hyper growth are met. What we are left with is the fact that QCOM will get a fat royalty income, the probability that it knows more than competitors about CDMA, and the possibility that it can execute better. This doesn't make it a gorilla, but it makes it a good enough investment for me. The whole field of wireless has so much room for expansion that there will be several winners. I'm more interested in making money than I am in labeling things. We should all thank Mr. Moore for his 3 great books. They sure helped me to understand tech adoption a lot better. Most books about the stock market and the impact of technology are terrible, but Mr. Moore's stand out as shining exceptions. The fact is that none of us will really know who is right until a few years from now. Differences of opinion are what make the stock market work, and all investors should listen the hardest to those that disagree with us.

To: gdichaz who wrote (2628)	6/15/1999 2:45:00 PM
From: mauser96	Respond to of 54805

In further support of the lack of complete control by QCOM see news.com "no matter how you look at it, it's still in effect going to be 3 standards" The resulting single "standard" will result in a more complex phone that can switch back and forth between the 3 modes. At best, QCOM only has some control over one mode. That's in Europe, in the US CDMA is a standard (IS-95) open to all. I think it very unlikely that the Europeans would ever cede over control of their wireless future to one American company. They already did that once with PC's (MSFT) and aren't happy about it. If someone has some documentation to backup some other take on QCOM standard control, please post it.