To: jack bittner who wrote (17030 ) 4/30/2000 11:12:00 AM From: CAtechTrader Respond to of 35685
Jack, I will respond in order: 1. 100x earnings is a high P/E...no doubt..but the value of the company is just emerging in my opinion...to say QCOM is expensive and not worth buying is like saying CISCO was expensive and should not be bought 7 years ago. The best merchandise is always expensive. 2. I would not call the patents expiring in 2003 as key...more like legacy technology..QCOM has many many patent applications in the pipeline right now that update the original CDMA patents to 3g standards...QCOM is in no danger at all of losing its lead in CDMA. An analogy would be MSFT and Windows 2000 and the "base" of Windows came off patent...that base being DOS..yes..one could make and sell DOS but would anyone buy it? Also read last weeks articles about how NOK is having trouble making CDMA chipsets itself...its not easy and QCOM is the leader by far in being able to produce CDMA chipsets in quantity and quality. 3. China has always been an enigma, no doubt, but many foreign companies are doing business profitably there. Certainly there is political risk in the contract, but ultimately the Chinese know they must have a communication network throughout China...they see it as necessary for control...the brighter lights see it as necessary for liberation...go figure..anyway..no doubt that network will be wireless..land lines are simply out of the question in China now...I would say its a matter of when, not if. Also remember, China is not the end all for QCOM, it would be nice business, but there is so much growth coming elsewhere QCOM will do quite well even without China. China is not the cake. Its the icing. 4. Yes, many cereal and fast food companies do well selling ubiquitous crap to their installed base...same as AT&T does to their wireless customers. However, you can still eat the cereal and the burgers. TDMA cannot eat the data though! Wireless data is growing at multiples of wireless voice..CDMA is the only choice for data...any IT manager buying a wireless system for his company will not even consider voice optimized TDMA. AT&T crowed this week about its wireless' units 44% growth last year as they sold shares to the public. The industry grew at 60% plus so AT&T lost market share. Craig McCaw saw this coming when he sold it to AT&T and AT&T sees it now...getting what they can from the dumb public from this antiquated technology. I think the trend towards CDMA is accelerating and will pick up pace even more as handheld wireless devices become ubiquitous...they will all run on CDMA.