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

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (11570)	4/7/2000 12:10:00 PM
From: Souze	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Ericsson now has a CDMA phone. Newsbytes, 04/7/2000 12:00 Ericsson's New Phones Offer Music, Radio, Keyboard 04/07/00 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 2000 APR 7 (NB) -- By Sherman Fridman, Newsbytes. Telefon AB LM Ericsson [NASDAQ:ERICY] unveiled Web-enabled wireless devices and accessories at Spring Internet World 2000. There were Web-enabled handsets, including WAP (wireless application protocol) and Bluetooth- enabled phones, as well as a variety of add-on devices. Fitting comfortably in the palm of the hand, and about the same size, Ericsson's model A2218z has an array of advanced features with what the company says is the best standard battery performance in the mobile phone industry. The A2218z is said to work like a PDA (personal digital assistant), with a calendar, reminder, and to-do features for personal information management. It also features voice- activated dialing and a display, which despite the small size of the handset, is the largest screen available on an Ericsson mobile phone in the United States. Anticipating the advent of third generation (3G) wireless telephone services, Ericsson's model A1228c is the company's first CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) handset. The A1228c has a WAP micro-browser that delivers real-time access to e-mail and specialized mobile Internet content, such as news, stock quotes, airline schedules, sports scores, weather, and traffic reports. The handset also supports two-way short messaging services that offer quick and direct text communications. ..... snipped ......

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (11570)	4/7/2000 5:34:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Okay, sorry again! You are quite right that Globalstar or the Service Providers won't dictate the retail prices set by distributors. I meant they set the prices they charge to the distributors. That leaves a narrow range in which the distributors can move. Distributors can't do what needs doing, which is reduce the minute prices to the level which will see humans use the minutes rather than them going to waste in space. For an allegedly free-market county [belied by the restrictive trade practises of the USA in regard to sheep trade], the USA and companies which live there are decidely un-freemarket in their practises. It is beyond belief [almost] that Globalstar lumbered into gear at the high end of minute pricing and is belatedly trying to stir some interest by giving some price cuts. That gives the impression of desperation and failure. Customers will be reluctant to buy a handset when they will assume Globalstar, like Iridium, will fail. They aren't interested in bent pipes and stuff. They just see a failing satellite system. Hence the share price. If Globalstar had started with free minutes and let the subscribers set the price by bidding up the price of available handsets, then the system would have been, last December, off to a roaring start. Minute prices would by now have had to be increased to slow demand as the supply of handsets would have been unable to keep up. This isn't back-seat driving. I'm in the driver's seat in that I sell the stock if I want to and buy it if I want to. That process, multiplied by all the other shareholders, drives action by management who have to react to a [currently] miserable share price. There is also actual voting at shareholder meetings. Our discussions and shared information here help determine the share price as we all react to ideas and information. When management tries to raise funds, the lenders or investors take a look at the share price on the market. That leads to management dilution and loss of control if things get too bad. There are many hands on the steering wheel of publicly listed companies! In a way, it doesn't matter to me that Globalstar has mucked things up, since the shares I can buy now are so cheap that the return over the next 10 years will be much the same as if they had done things right and the share price was now $45. A third the price is not a bad deal! But then again, they can still muck things up more. George Gilder says the intelligence needs to be at the periphery, which means the gateways and subscribers set the prices. The Kremlin central 5 year planning hasn't worked very well so far. This is an extraordinarily difficult concept for people to grasp, but it's worth the effort. There will be a lot more of it around. [I should add I'm kidding, but I genuinely am surprised that Globalstar didn't 'get it' and few people seem to - maybe it really is tough to understand how it would work]. Maurice