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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ccryder who wrote (10054)	2/11/2000 4:42:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 29987

<Ericy wanted to squash the competing technology by buying it and trashing it. > While I wouldn't put anything past Ericy, I doubt that's the case. Orbitel was already part-owned by Ericy and Ericy bought the remainder of the company in 1996. The Globalstar contract was only part of Orbitel's business. Maybe Ericy didn't put a lot of effort into it until it was more certain to fly, but by mid 1996 Ericy had ceased pretending that CDMA wouldn't work in mobile [in private anyway since they started negotiating with Qualcomm for a license for terrestrial CDMA in 1996]. They knew CDMA would work. So they were unlikely to dump something which would be profitable [Globalstar handsets] and would not be a competitor to their terrestrial GSM lines. Even if Globalstar was a huge success, that would mean Ericy Globalstar handsets would be a huge success as they would get about 60% of Globalstar handset sales market share. Most of the world at that time appeared [to them] to be going GSM but with only 20% or so of terrestrial GSM handset market share, on lowish profit margins, Ericy would be much better off with Globalstar handsets. So they could gain heaps by selling a high market share of high margin Globalstar phones rather than terrestrial GSM with low market share and low margins. It makes no sense for them to have wanted to close down Globalstar and I don't believe they did more than hold investment in the Globalstar handsets steady until Globalstar was a proven goer [which was delayed by the Zenit prang]. They have produced operational handsets, albeit with a few glitches, and I have used them. They work[mostly]. I think Ericy will be going flat out to get the handsets out. But it takes time. Any delay by them just lets Telit get a bigger market share. That's not good for Ericy. Vodafone will be enquiring of Ericy as to when the hell they'll be getting their damn phones ready!! Ericy delays are costing Vodafone $$billions in opportunity cost [lost $1.50 per minute sales on billions of Globalstar minutes per year, lost handset sale profits and depreciating gateway and GlobalstarLP investments]. You can be sure that Ericy is being instructed by Vodafone that this is NOT an adequate performance and Ericy should get moving pronto. Ericy will also be getting told that W-CDMA better look VERY much like cdma2000 and there had better be a very high degree of compatibility between the two. Maybe identical! Vodafone, which is now a significant service provider in WWeb stuff will be leaning on Ericy to provide the technology Vodafone wants and to make it snappy. Maybe even SnapTracky! Maurice