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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Feral who wrote (4979)	11/27/2000 8:42:57 PM
From: Webster	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 196545

I found this post by Tero quite interesting and allows us to see another side of NOK. Tero touts NOK's ability at "cracking extremely thorny engineering problems" and that "You may see the Minnie Mouse covers and scoff at them - under the surface of those covers lies a titanic engineering challenge" For your reading - (sorry Ruffian, not taking your job) Thanks Web. From the Fool Board - A CDMA Reflection Point from Tero.. Say what? "You have rightly stated that NOK is not known for their technical prowess. Their strength is in their innovative design, distribution channels, and suburb management teams." Is this some sort of emerging consensus on this board? I don't know what "suburb management" means - maybe it's a reference to executives commuting to work from Kauniainen. But let me make a point about "innovative design". It does not mean licensing Disney characters for snap-on covers, OK? It means cracking extremely thorny engineering problems. Designing and implementing internal antenna technology across the current product range demanded solving several interlocking engineering problems. The exchangeable cover feature was an even more hair-raising challenge; the entire internal lay-out of the phones had to be redesigned from the scratch when the 5100 series debuted. Why do you think most rivals of Nokia do not offer customized covers more than two years after the 5100 series debuted - and after this feature has been extended to 3100 series, 3200 series and 8200 series? Why don't they offer internal antennas for low- and medium-range models more than a year this feature debuted? Let me tell you; it's not because they don't want to. The industry knows about the triple-digit profit margins of the snap-on covers. The industry knows that internal antennas are increasingly turning into a pivotal purchasing-decision determiner. Most vendors don't offer these features because they cannot. They don't have the engineering talent for doing major platform redesigns fast enough. They don't have cutting-edge production line automation that enables factories to switch into new platforms fast enough to justify a 12-month product cycle. They don't have subcontractors specializing in high-precision injection-moulding techniques that are demanded by that humble-looking snap-on approach. These dilemmas are not trivial; they are very, very complex. You may see the Minnie Mouse covers and scoff at them - under the surface of those covers lies a titanic engineering challenge. You may think that chipset technology is the most important feature of a mobile phone. I invite you to poll a dozen ordinary American consumers - ask them how much they care about the chipset vendor of their mobile phone. Nokia's US market share is now topping 38%. And you say that "wolves are at the door"? If 38% share represents dire straits - how would you characterize the position of Audiovox and Kyocera? Have you seen what has happened to the share prices of these companies? Have you seen what has happened to the US market share of Kyocera? It doesn't look like they have benefited much from buying their chipsets from the "right" vendor - does it? You seem to think that addressing the fastest-growing second-generation digital standard in the world (TMDA) is not a major issue for a phone vendor. To me, it looks like markets are paying a lot of attention to how well phone vendors address the TDMA market. Check out the year-to-date performance of Audiovox and Kyocera and you see what I mean. Tero