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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gdichaz who wrote (4382)	4/25/2000 9:47:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

You are characterizing the situation as Europe vs. USA. This is completely inaccurate. W-CDMA was developed by a Japanese operator, which invited Lucent, Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson to collaborate with it. These companies - two from USA, two from Scandinavia - were invited by DoCoMo to develop W-CDMA. At least Nokia and Ericsson took this partnership seriously; they are now benefiting from it. Three Japanese operators are planning to apply for a 3G license and implement W-CDMA. The fourth, DDI, has given hints that it will also choose W-CDMA. These four operators are bitter rivals. They are not just "the Japanese". They are four independent corporations and they have all evaluated the 3G market independently. It makes no sense for them to back W-CDMA for nationalistic reasons. This is a DoCoMo standard - DDI has no motive for choosing W-CDMA unless it thinks that this standard really is superior. It is simply unprecedented for a foreign corporation to now start making demands on Japanese operators. They should have the right to conduct their businesses as they choose. Let the market forces decide which 3G standard wins. US government interference here would be deeply unfair, because Japan is not dependent on the Finnish government either economically or militarily. Nokia does not have a powerful sugar daddy it can manipulate into bullying smaller nations when the going gets tough. Maybe that is why Nokia is so competitive. Are Americans really for or against free market competition? This may be one test case. You see - true free market competition does not always favor US companies. It can sometimes also hurt them. We have seen this in markets where Nokia and Motorola compete without government intrusion. Tero