To: slacker711 who wrote (11007 ) 3/20/2000 3:05:00 PM From: Maurice Winn Respond to of 29987
<"We can't say where the phones are; we don't have that information," said Globalstar chairman Bernard Schwartz during a telephone conference call with investors in late February. "We aren't in a position to share hard information. When we push [our service providers] to get information, they tell us to go away. > While it might be true that they can't disclose where the phones are, [because of commercial confidentiality] they can say how many handsets are connected. Some of those connected will be their own ones, some will be service providers or distributors who don't pay. Some will be FBI listening in on us and making free calls [probably the real reason they wanted to be able to 'tap' the calls]. But Globalstar knows how many handsets are connected. That is an important number and they refuse to tell us. If they really don't know, then the system is FAR from working properly. They also know how many minutes are transacted. Again, they won't tell us by area, but they DO know the total. That also is good information to have but it's not available. You'd think a software engineer could figure out how to link that data to a graph on the globalstar.com url. They don't need to push Service Providers to get that information. Just read the data from the GOCC! They have that Gateway Operating Control Centre right there in San Jose, hiding behind big secure fences and guards so the Service Providers can't tamper with the data. Just get Dan to take a look at the screen and post a message in SI! We'll invent our own graph... Hi Carol, Bill, Bruce, Mac, Paul, the rest of the gang, Tony, Bernie. Don't worry, those Service Providers will have to swing into gear sooner or later or lose their business to Sprint, Telecom New Zealand, me or somebody else. Come to think of it, any of you SI people want to build a gateway in USA in competition with those AirTouch people? If they goof up meeting their minute agreements, we might get the chance. You know, the Service Providers really have got incentive to sell their business plan minutes. They have time to get it done. The requirements for major markets are not too onerous. It seems to me they are trying to squeeze GlobalstarLP for a discount when the Service Providers should be providing the discounts instead of their stupidly greedy $1.70 per minute, $1500 and $60 per month. Maybe we should hold onto our 45c per minute wholesale price. Let the SPs lose their exclusivity, then capture the retail and wholesale margin, sell the handsets direct from the production lines via the Web the same as Dell does. Forget about shops on High Street and in Preoria. This is not and never was a mass-retail market like hamburgers and gasoline. We'd need a rights issue for $1bn, but we'd pick up a bunch of retailing franchises! Vodafone paid over $10bn just for Mannesmann [I think about $180bn or so] and that's just a small area. We can get the whole of the USA for $1bn or so! Chess is a great game! Globalstar might be planning such a move?! Personally, I still prefer the existing plan, but slash the wholesale minute prices to make things happen. The Service Providers can easily hold onto their exclusive deals at 40c a minute wholesale [in the big markets anyway], so I doubt we'd get them. They'd just need to trim their margins from their absurd $1 a minute. Also, it's better to have local Service Providers [for now anyway] though that might change. The Dell model is really great for a product like Globalstar. Just thinking out loud about who benefits from what... Maybe we should raise $2bn in a rights offering. That would be about right for marketing [a third of the value of things is pretty much in the marketing]. Use it to fund operations while we slash prices for a couple of years[marketing buys the minutes from operations at 5c per minute from now until Constellation1 dies - or 6 years] and gives them away to build demand]. Use it to buy 2m handsets and fixed phones. Use it to pay interest on the loans [or ditch the loans]. Stuff like that... Any takers? $2bn isn't much compared with the overall value of GlobalstarLP. Maurice PS: Thanks Jim for the Grand Canyon report. The Colorado River also has people on boats and they could use a phone for when they get stuck and need to rent a helicopter to go and rescue them. Don't get to enthused by the Sales Manager's enthusiasm. That's his job. Hype up the sales people to see how good it is and get out there and sell, sell, sell, pell mell. Interest isn't a sale. I called into AirTouch in San Diego and no phones until Thursday. The shop assistant was keyed up - he'd been on a Globalstar training course and while he wasn't sure how many gateways there are in North America, he did know there are 48 satellites. He didn't know that Cooters couldn't use his phone in Mexico. This guy thought they work in Mexico. He better get that right before he sells many. Maybe you phoned him and he told you there was interest but it was just the 68 SI handset owners phoning around or visiting and it seemed like a lot of interest.