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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Boplicity who wrote (4293)	6/22/1999 9:24:00 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Greg, I'm not sure which portions in particular you wanted comments about, so I'll give some general ones. It would appear that STEL (ticker stii) needed to clear up this litigation ASAP in order for the acquisition by Newbridge to be free of encumbrances. BRCM seems to have come out of a litigation that was originally directed at them with flying colors, although the "undisclosed amount" of the payment to STEL would help in assessing this. Details are still a bit sketchy as these were just released, but apparently some of the assets of STEL either weren't acquired or will be sold after the deal closes. I shouldn't speculate on the importance of that at the moment. In its cable assets, STEL has very high performance PHY silicon that measures out ahead of BRCM in some respects, but they haven't any MAC silicon. As for QCOM not being in this market....gosh I don't know. Not attractive enough I guess, and certainly not within their core competencies. If you mean sort of a "CDMA here=CDMA there=CDMA everywhere" type of argument, that's not really the case. There's some overlap in the technological foundations, but it's not like a quickie modification to a cellular CDMA design gives you something you can sell in the cable space. Entirely different design parameters and virtually a ground-up new design. Contrary to popular belief, QCOM did not 'invent' CDMA. They have zillions of CDMA-related patents, but so do dozens of other companies. I don't see where their position and knowledge in cellular CDMA would guarantee success if they ventured into the cable space since the need for CDMA in the cable space is not clear-cut. CDMA is a wonderful technology, but it doesn't solve all the world's problems and it isn't the best choice for every application. dh