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

To: Terrapin who wrote (8839)	1/15/2001 11:32:10 AM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 34857

Terrapin, re: Samsung SGH-N100 TGV This dual-mode (900/1800) GSM WAP 1.1 model gets a pretty positive review here. uk.gsmbox.com << I have said before that IMHO the real story for Nokia this year will be progress in the GPRS sphere. If MOT is gearing up for a major push in this area then it will be worth keeping an eye on. I agree with you. Nokia evidently plans to play this pretty conservatively. First with the best, rather than first, or most. The Ericsson R520 GPRS looks pretty strong on paper: Message 15166236 ... and Samsungs SGH Q100 4+2 is due out this quarter. cellular.co.za I think that HOW Nokia plays this game is critical, but I'm not going to be an armchair quarterback. - Eric -

To: Terrapin who wrote (8839)	1/15/2001 8:37:47 PM
From: Puck	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 34857

I've been receiving hints that Nokia's upcoming GPRS offerings will be quite special but no specifics. I have no doubt they will released this year, during 1H in all probability, and such product unveiling by the time of hte CeBIT convention would be nice. When it will happen I don't have a clue though. My guess is that we will hear something at CeBIT but I sure could be wrong. As for Motorola, they are already offering GPRS phones for use with Sonera's system, and they have been panned. Media reports say they have many glitches and are unduly slow and unwieldly. Tero has written about this, saying that Motorola was determined to have their first GPRS product commercially available in time for the holiday season regardless of whether or not it was completely de-bugged. This, to me, seems a desperate attempt on their part to cling to their old identity and demonstrate that they are still a force. I think it is obvious that Nokia is taking a cautious and deliberate approach to the development and introduction of its GPRS phones. For one thing, their brand has an excellent image for quality, unlike Motorola's now, and they must be sure to protect it by not introducing faulty products. I'm not nearly as concerned that they introduce their GPRS phones quickly as others in the investment community appear to be. Of course, I don't want them to be very late, but to me the difference between them making their GPRS phones commercially available, say, next month as opposed to sometime during the summer months isn't that meaningful if they would be using the lag time wisely to fine tune their handsets. My reason for this attitude is what I witnessed as a wireless investor in the mid-90's when 2G networks were initially being commercialized. Ericsson was the first wireless handset provider to completely transition their product line to the digital side. In 1996 they had about an 80% market share for digital handsets because of their first mover status. I remember Ericsson officials (including Ahrenbring) maintaining publicly that because the market for digital handsets was incipient and rapidly expanding and changing that their overwhelming market share wasn't particularly meaningful and certainly not predictive of an innate advantage that they would be able to leverage into the future because the competition hadn't yet truly arrived. They said this in reaction to analysts who were telling their clients that Ericsson's early market share lead meant that Ericsson had a material advantage and stood a very good chance of dominating the digital handset market for a long time to come--that it was Ericsson's to lose. The Ericsson officials were quite right in retrospect. Nokia didn't attack the market in a big way for another year, and when they did, being early to the party turned out not to be a particularly meaningful advantage for Ericsson.