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

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (3748)	11/29/1999 10:22:00 AM
From: nbfm	Respond to of 13582

Cisco to Outline Wireless Technology Strategy, NYT Reports San Jose, California, Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Cisco Systems Inc. plans to discuss on Wednesday its strategy to provide wireless technology for voice-telephone service and Internet access, the New York Times said. The fixed, or non-mobile, wireless technology, expected to be offered as soon as next year, would be an alternative to high-speed digital-telephone lines and cable-television Internet modems. Details of the plan will be the first offered since Cisco last month announced its agreement with Motorola Inc. and other equipment makers to create a format to send data over microwave frequencies, the paper said. Cisco, the world's biggest maker of Internet equipment, said last week it will sell network gear worth as much as $200 million to Bredbandsbolaget AB as the Swedish company seeks to lure clients to its service that allows fast Web access. (NYT 11/29 C1) For the Web Site of the New York Times, type NYTI <Go>. Nov/29/1999 8:03 For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here. (C) Copyright 1999 Bloomberg L.P. Any redistribution of Bloomberg content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Bloomberg L.P. Any reference to the material must be properly attributed to Bloomberg News. The information herein was obtained from sources which Bloomberg L.P. and its suppliers believe reliable, but they do not guarantee its accuracy. Neither the information, nor any opinion expressed, constitutes a solicitation of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities.(C) Copyright 1999 Bloomberg L.P. BLOOMBERG, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Financial Markets, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg News Radio are trademarks, tradenames and service marks of Bloomberg L.P.

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (3748)	11/29/1999 1:52:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

THE SHOSTECK EMAIL BRIEFING Issue #25 November, 1999 Herschel Shosteck Associates, Ltd. shosteck.com To get this Briefing free each month, click here ------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SYMBIAN STRATEGY BEGINS TO ERODE In late 1998, we released our first study of the effect of the Internet on the wireless industry. At that time, Symbian was a new strategy by the three major wireless phone manufacturers (Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson) to leverage the EPOC operating system for use in future smart phones. This was popularly regarded an "anti-Microsoft" strategy, since it was widely reported that Microsoft had been courting the manufacturers to use Windows CE. Reasons given for the move included the fact that EPOC was technologically superior to Windows CE, consuming less memory and having better real-time determinism. We suspected the reasons were more philosophical -- conceding the operating system to Microsoft so early could have led to the hardware manufacturers losing control of the "smart phone" market. In our study we noted that, posturing aside, the "big three" would not hesitate to adopt Windows CE or other operating systems if the market demanded it. Indeed, the declining market share of devices based on the EPOC operating system (sold by Psion, a co-owner of Symbian) indicated that EPOC-based devices were already losing favor. Moreover, Nokia admitted in early 1998 (prior to the formation of Symbian) that it had agreements with Microsoft for future use of Windows CE. At the very least, the phone manufacturers would be forced to adopt differing user interfaces to meet market demand. This has now begun, with the first announcement by Nokia that it would license the Palm operating system for some of its future devices. The other Symbian allies (Ericsson, Motorola, Matsushita, and Philips) were rumored to be "hopping mad." Counter-announcements quickly followed which indicated that in fact, Symbian and Palm would work together. This brought up numerous questions. For example, why would two operating systems be required in a single device? Symbian executives we interviewed indicated that the choice was simply a matter of putting a popular user interface atop the Symbian platform. This seems curious. The Qualcomm pdQ, which also uses the PalmOS, doesn't use the Symbian platform. On the other hand, the Qualcomm pdQ can't run EPOC applications. But is the ability to run EPOC applications really important to the marketplace, or is this make-work for EPOC? Palm executives noted that the Symbian contribution will be relatively small. Only the microkernel of EPOC wil be used -- the operating system and user interface will be entirely PalmOS. Another question was how Palm and Symbian would be able to work with each other. After all, at their core, both are operating systems companies -- direct competitors for the attention of wireless phone manufacturers. Lest we forget that, Mark Bercow, vice president of strategic alliances and platform development for Palm Computing was quick to set the record straight in an interview with Wired. He commented, "We have been actually somewhat fazed at how effective Symbian has been at getting their nose in the middle of our announcement with Nokia, and we sort of wonder why that is happening, but this agreement is between us and Nokia." The Palm-Nokia agreement, and the earlier licensing of PalmOS by Qualcomm, makes one question the value of EPOC for the Symbian partners. EPOC is the crown jewel of the Symbian platform, and the only major element which is entirely under Symbian's control. Other elements -- for example, Java and Bluetooth -- have been developed by other companies or consortiums. If EPOC loses value, the Symbian strategy is diminished. However, this is not to say that Symbian will fail entirely. Symbian will remain, regardless, as a sort of central R&D facility for its partners. It can retain some value, at least for the short term, as an integrator of technology. And, even diminished, the continued existence of Symbian serves as a warning from the phone manufacturers to Microsoft: we won't be won easily. Index of other Email Briefings

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (3748)	11/29/1999 11:29:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 13582

RCR, November 22nd, 1999 edition, page 6: Vendors, carriers lukewarm on Technology Qualcomm tries to duplicate CMDA effort with HDR BY LYNNETTE LUNA "About 10 years ago Qualcomm Inc. had a goal - to ensure CDMA technology's success by heavily promoting it, investing in companies that would deploy it and entering the equipment supplier business. Now total worldwide Code Division Multiple Access subscribers number more than 43 million, and Qualcomm's stock is soaring. The CDMA innovator is hoping the same three objectives will ensure widespread adoption of its High Data Rate product for high-speed Internet access. But carriers today are slow to warm up to HDR technology as they have a plethora of technology choices with which to implement wireless data solutions. The challenge is to find the solution that makes the most sense in a third-generation market. Qualcomm's HDR product allows mobile access to the Internet at megabit speeds and can be optimized for other technologies besides CDMA. Many U.S. operators wonder if there is a market for megabit speeds in the mobile environment and whether they want to dedicate a standard 1.25-megahertz channel solely to data when voice service will be the primary driver of wireless for many years. "Every carrier believes data is a line of business they have to be in," said Matt Sopcich, director of wireless data with U S West Wireless, which has tested the product and continues to work with 'vendors on other similar solutions. "It's more of a challenge to figure out what solution makes the most sense and gives the best platform to migrate from." Nationwide CDMA operator Sprint PCS continues to evaluate HDR technology along with other alternatives, analyzing the spectrum impacts is part of the process. It want's to determine what its needs and as its evolves its network into the IXRTT platform and beyond. IXRTT is supposed to give CDMA operators extra voice capacity and higher data speeds of about 115 kilobits per second. Qualcomm's recent demonstrations of the product at the company's headquarters in San Diego showed mobile transmission speeds of 1.8 Mbps, though the company said HDR can and will commercially offer spectrally efficient speeds at 2.4 Mbps. To spur HDR's adoption, Qualcomm last week invested $200 million in Korea Telecom Freetel, which is expected to deploy HDR in its major markets during 2001 with Korean vendor Samsung. The CDMA operator today offers data access rates of 64 kbps and sees an increasing demand for wireless Internet access in Korea as landline Internet penetration remains low. Many telecommunications providers have not rolled out cable and digital subscriber lines in significant portions of Korea. "We've been targeting Asia, Japan and Korea with the technology," said Jeff Jacobs, Qualcomm's senior vice president of corporate development. "Both Japan and Korea have rolled out IS-95B networks. They know the power of providing high-speed Internet access. Their markets are getting more saturated with voice users. They want to provide the best data solution to continue to attract users." In the United States, vendors publicly are lukewarm about HDR because they don't know if their customers want it. "Our customers aren't sure how they want to go about this," said Mark Buford, senior manager of media relations with Nortel Networks. "Our sense is they are looking for more of a combined voice and data solution ... We're following it to see what customer demand is going to be." Lucent Technologies Inc. said it is committed to IXRTT and 3XRTT evolutions its customers are demanding. "The bigger issue for the carriers is being convinced that high-speed wireless Internet is profitable, and there will be a market demand for it," said Jacobs. "Clearly, one thing is to get infrastructure vendors to support HDR. It's a chicken-and-egg situation. Manufacturers are not completely convinced until they see demand from the carrier. Carriers want a commitment from vendors." This is why Qualcomm plans to announce soon an industry consortium of carriers, manufacturers and Internet content providers that will help create the HDR standard. The group will be similar in structure to the WAP Forum, which was successful in pushing the Wireless Application Protocol as the standard Internet connection language for the wireless environment. "Creating a standard is very key to us," said Jacobs, who declined to name anyone who will be part of the new consortium. "We believe we will have little problem getting major infrastructure manufacturers, operators and content providers." Qualcomm hopes input from content providers will drive the design of Internet access devices. They also need to understand how to develop content that supports megabit wireless access speeds. The company sold its infrastructure business to Ericsson Inc. in March, but will provide ASICs for HDR capable handsets. Earlier this month it introduced a family of HDR ASICs and software, and GTRAN Inc. recently entered into a CDMA and HDR license agreement with Qualcomm. It plans to offer modem card products for wireless applications using CDMA technology." -Fred Next Previous