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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bux who wrote (3371)	11/18/1999 1:46:00 AM
From: quidditch	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13582

Bux, cfoent: because I think that you are making similar points: [M]oving from the known cash cow [voice] to the unknown data market, despite all the "hype" is going to take some "enrollment." So I still conclude that one of the main motivating factors for the Korean investment was to get HDR out there. Also, I think it could be a good laboratory.... and ...Qualcomm had invested in this roll-out and received substantial benefits from the real-world data that was collected from this large-scale deployment....Qualcomm's Korean investment is a wise way to gain real world HDR experience as soon as possible. It would be time and cost prohibitive to gain the same amount of experience on a test-bed constructed entirely at Qualcomm's expense. if you will, this reply is to both. I guess you are saying two things: (i) use Korea as the test bed/lab to work out MSM4500 (and maybe even 1xrtt, on which MSM4500 builds, if I've got it right) kinks for the US and other markets and, more importantly, perhaps, (ii) force the rate of adoption of HDR so the SP folks can see what it really does and can better appreciate the potential market. But wasn't that what the Monday demo, and the January follow-up are for? If the SP have to see it in the flesh in a country-wide (Korean) deployment to "get it", what are we missing? With early stage CDMA development, I can understand it better because there was widespread FUD that this unproven technology would even work. If, as cfoent says, deployment of HDR as a "data" communications medium is not within Q's control, why is (even a successful) Korean deployment going to necessarily dictate what Airtouch, BAM or PCS does? Q can not possibly invest enough to "enroll" the big SP's here, or perhaps even in Japan. It is true, perhaps, that the Japanese market will be influenced by what occurs in Korea. But, isn't the idea of this market and this HDR technology compelling enough for the SP's to see the potential market? Especially as wireless voice price structure begins to approach the lower limits of the cost structure? The real question in my mind, and the 3G question, is when and how quickly does it ramp up? If Q is spending $300 million to force the rate of adoption, that is an interesting concept, and one I hadn't really thought about in relation to Qualcomm: a little like Windows' successive launches of the latest and greatest improvements to their OSs: i.e., you've got WIN 95, but wait 'til you get WIN 98; and you won't be able to live without WIN 2000....The difference being, Mr. Softee's mere launch of the newest, latest and greatest version of Windows was sufficient to establish the demand. This implies, and it's a question that must be in the back of some of the minds on the thread, how long is the HDR product cycle and what comes after? Or, maybe there is no thereafter and Q depends simply on appliance proliferation in Cadillac and Geo dashboards, etc. But I'm getting a little OT. In terms of hard core testing of HDR in vivo, I guess that I can see it. It's just that $300 million seems a bit much to invest in system ramp testing. But maybe not. On the second theme, Q has had more than its share of write-offs relating to its CDMA adoption investments (Nextwave, Ukraine, Russia, Brazil). I just thought that we were beyond that. Sorry for the rant, guys. Don't know if I added much to the pot, here. Steve