Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Eric L who wrote (5032)	11/29/2000 11:01:52 AM
From: Keith Feral	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197011

Tim Luke has been a banker from QCOM in the past. I would suggest that his credentials are impeccable. His suggestion that BLS is considering CDMA2000 overlays vs. EDGE is reasonable conjecture given QCOM's increasing influence on the standardization of 3G CDMA. QCOM's early development of WCDMA chipsets have enabled companies like Cingular and Nextel to compare the real cost benefits of CDMA2000 vs. WCDMA (the platform that had been previously expressed as the 3G alternative for TDMA, GSM, and iDEN companies.) Now, they have a real opportunity to weigh the economics of CDMA2000 and WCDMA as direct upgrades to 3G CDMA without having to invest in intermediate steps such as EDGE or GPRS. Until the upgrade decisions are made by Cingular, everything that the analysts, journalists, CEO's, etc... are hearsay by definition. However, as investors, we must decide who we are going to listen to about the economic and technological benefits of the rival standards for 3G. On the one hand, we can listen to the supporters of Nokia and Ericsson which are trying to embrace intermediate upgrades to 3G such as EDGE & GPRS. On the other hand, we can listen to the supporters of 3G that support a direct upgrade to 3G which includes QCOM, Samsung, Nortel, Lucent, Hyandai & the other 88 members of the CDG (excluding Nokia and Ericsson). I am not going to discredit the industry experts for finally hinting that CDMA2000 now has the commercial opportunity to replace EDGE. For a long time, it bothered me that QCOM might not deploy the resources necessary to build a WCDMA chipset and insist on the technical superiority of CDMA2000. Also, I had reservations about how the company was going to commercialize CDMA2000 as an overlay ALTERNATIVE to WCDMA, EDGE, and GPRS. However, in the past few weeks, all the missing pieces for QCOM's strategy have fallen into place. Regards, Keith