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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (31141)	9/6/2000 9:22:28 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Eric, I do not know if we can determine at this time, if Qualcomm will be a gorilla in future tornados. Just to be perfectly clear, I am certain that I know. The answer is a loud and resounding, "No, we can't at this point in time." Not only is it possible that a Qualcomm competitor may emerge as the gorilla, it's also possible that no gorilla will emerge from a particular tornado. The beauty of GGaming is that we don't need to place bets about the future. Instead, we examine the adoption of the product after it has occured. Therein lies the safety of GGaming. --Mike Buckley

To: Eric L who wrote (31141)	9/6/2000 11:49:52 PM
From: sditto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

<<Forget "the standard" for the moment. It looks to me, increasingly, that we are evolving into "committee controlled architecture" for 3G3 CDMA.>> Having a committee control certain aspects of CDMA will undoubtedly reduce the ability of QCOM to differentiate it's offerings from the competition. As Moore points out in LOTFL, all tech companies are faced with a perpetually declining "escalator" where what once was core and differentiating is now context. Committee control over some components of your architecture is part of that inexorable process. The trick for QCOM is to continually move up the escalator of innovation while simultaneously increasing its competitive advantage in the now familiar GG dimensions (architecture control, barrier to entry, high switching costs, strong value chain formation). I've often tried to illuminate the concept of architecture using the human body as an analogy. To control an architecture you want to start with a major component - preferably the heart, mind, or spine (controlling the fingernail would not be a good place to start no matter how good your IP or manufacturing prowess). I view CDMA as the technical equivalent of the spine - both giving shape and support to the body and creating a conduit through which the various body parts can communicate with the brain. Through their R&D efforts, QCOM has become the world recognized leader in spines and is in a position to translate this knowledge across the entire animal kingdom. Additionally, their knowledge and skills have grown beyond just spines to include the other parts of the anatomy which connect into the spine. Now that the standards committees have latched onto standardization of vertebrae L7 and competitors still argue over whether they invented the spine, QCOM is moving up the escalator from control of a component, to a major sub-system, to eventually the entire system and/or class of systems. My apologies to the MDs on the thread if I mangled the anatomy lesson. <vbg>