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To: foundation who wrote (38544)	1/28/2001 10:00:25 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Ben, << I wonder who's in denial? <g> >> OK. Those are the issues. They are well documented. We even have PapaBear Per Lindberg and BearRag Barrons in the act. Now ... ... how do you see this affecting CDMA takeup? ... how do you see diminished confidence in the wireless sector and wireless data as a whole affecting an investment in QUALCOMM? Why? I have my own thoughts about this but I'd rather hear yours. - Eric -

To: foundation who wrote (38544)	1/30/2001 2:21:43 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Ben, re: Parthus (PRTH) - GPRS Doom & Gloom - Problem Solved by None Other Than ... << I wonder who's in denial? <g> >> There may be a little story to follow up on here. On Sunday you linked here a story about GPRS problems with big bolded quotes from an individual named Brian Long that nobody I know in the wireless industry had heard of before. This Irish "Entrepreneur of the Year" was quoted as making some astounding (your bolded) statements by the "Guardian Unlimited" on Jan 26 2001 as contained in these excerpts from an article called "Parthus Warns of 2.5G Delay": >> Overheating mobile handsets and poor battery life could delay the mass take-up of the next generation of internet enabled devices by at least one year, Irish technology firm Parthus cautioned yesterday. ... Big players such as Vodafone, BT Cellnet and Orange hope GPRS (general packet radio switching) or "2.5 generation phones" will be on mass sale by Christmas, but Parthus chief executive Brian Long believes that target may have to be put back until the end of 2002 ... BT Cellnet and KPN Mobile of the Netherlands have already started offering the services to corporate customers. "There are problems with GPRS for sure," he said. "I don't think we'll see mass use of GPRS until the end of 2002. GPRS cellphones will go on sale this year, but the big issue is performance. Phones are running too hot and talk time is too low." << Now that "mass use of GPRS until the end of 2002" was what astounded me. Even though it is acknowledged that engineers are struggling to cram technology that meets power, size, speed and cost requirements into handsets 5 or 6 time slot GPRS handsets (models delivering have three), and waiting for components ... I have never seen anyone quoted as saying "I don't think we'll see mass use of GPRS until the end of 2002." It was an astounding statement. But that is evidently only part of the story. Evidently these quoted remarks were made when this "contract IP developer", Parthus (a recently IPO'd company with a market cap of ... catch this ... $1.55 Billion) who obtains 2/3rds of their revenue to one customer (STM) and has $32 million in annual revenue (2/3rds from 1 customer) and income of - 10.0 Mil with net profit margin of - 50.20%, reported earnings last week. I mean no wonder the MSN Advisor reported a Price/Volume alert: 01/24/01 Price up sharply on unusually high volume at the same time they posted 2 financial alerts: Net profit margin down sharply - Quarterly return on assets down significantly. This character Brian Long is pretty cool. He projects doom ... then he provides the solution. As Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story: >> Solution for Mobile Net Device Power Problems? Lucy Sherriff Jan 29 2001 The Register theregister.co.uk New chip is expected to be launched some time in the next three months. Irish chip designer, Parthus, is nearly ready to give second generation mobile Internet a boot up the jacksie, with new technology that will dissipate up to 100 times as much power as currently possible. While the big four phone companies have predicted that phones will be on the market by Christmas 2001, Parthus said that battery life problems and overheating handsets could delay mass adoption of Internet devices by at least a year. Brian Long, the chief executive of Parthus, commented: "Current prototypes are only running at 10Kbps. When the data rate is wound up, they use too much power and become too hot." More details were not forthcoming, however, as Parthus refuses to say more until the launch, some time in the next three months. It did hint that any launch would be accompanied by the announcement of a customer for the chip. The company also announced its first year results, showing GBP22 million revenues - a rise of 68 per cent according to the company figures. << As I said in a response to your excellent post defining how QUALCOMM might benefit from a longer than anticipated delay in GPRS handsets: "If there are reasonable quantities of terminals stocked in retail outlets next December, all is much ado about nothing. If not, it is another story and it seems that QUALCOMM might be able to capitalize on it ... " I've posted more detail on Parthus, Brian Long, and his GPRS venture here: Message 15266548 I am discounting his statements. Significantly. Brian Long may be perfectly credible. That remains to be seen. At the moment I do not find him so ... ... but maybe he will save the day for GPRS ... ... and shorten that lead time. This does not change the fact that their are technology problems to solve for GPRS and UMTS handsets (and Brian will have a solution for that one also if IDCC doesn't get there first). <g> Best, - Eric -