To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (6979 ) 8/31/1999 5:30:00 PM From: Maurice Winn Respond to of 29987
Okay, last post! Credit where it's due. <There are several standards against which we can measure management's effectiveness: against some personal standard of perfection, against mgmt's stated busines plan, and against mgmt's competition. > Competition is the best measure and between Qualcomm and Loral, they have built the best system and integrated it with the rest of the telecommunications maelstrom really well. You know, Irwin Jacobs has spun off so much stuff over the decades it's unbelievable. It's like a black hole in reverse. Bernie Schwartz had the wit to see the opportunity and the ability to see it through. It truly is an amazing achievement and in my opinion a crowning glory of the 20th century. In 1996 I ranted in SI about how the MIRV rockets of USSR were being beaten into ploughshares to be launched from Kazakhstan with Globalstar satellites. Okay, so Zenit pranged. Never mind, Soyuz has worked well and more to come. This is about a LOT more than money. This is about human dreams. I am so excited to be a little part of it [an investor]. As a child I was frightened of nukes but loved rockets and stuff. To see the nuke rockets launching communications is as good as life gets, apart from love and health. ICO, the government department, has come a gutser. Due to cultural problems, which is funny since they were boasting about how their staff were from all round the world and how it was like a UN and stuff. Well, if they'd been more interested in their customers than themselves, they might have succeeded. The UN means well too, but bureaucrats, bossy types and governments can't help themselves. Iridium came a gutser too. A victim of corporate hubris, arrogance and no think. Motorola was King and when you are that good, the mere fact of thinking something feels so good that one just knows one is right. Even as the mess started to draw in, they went with powerlifting macho attitudes and fired the rockets up anyway. Globalstar has been excellent! Odyssey, Constellation Communications, Ellipso and others have been unable to achieve the dream. Globalstar alone has been able to do it. Well, nearly! And they can still goof it up singlehandedly. One doesn't need competition to fail. It is crazy to think that they could fail at this late stage with the handsets [apparently and they bloody well better be] working perfectly, nearly all the satellites up and working fine and the gateways working and nearing completion [many of them]. All they have to do is sell them. Sometimes people don't know how to sell stuff. They pretend price doesn't matter. They don't see that a huge surplus of a perishable product should be sold cheaply to generate sales. They get greedy. It seems that with Bernie now saying $1 to $1.25 per minute and $1000 for a handset they recognize that a cheaper minute will sell a lot more. We have 10bn for sale over the next 12 months. It would be nice to sell them all. So, yes, this has been a brilliant achievement to date by Qualcomm and Loral. Congratulations and admirations! So, how come the handsets haven't been ordered by the million? We need that many within 6 months [to meet my expectations] or 12 months [to meet most people's expectations]. Maurice PS: Over and out!!!