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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: S100 who wrote (114781)	2/28/2002 10:01:45 PM
From: S100	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

INTERVIEW: Qualcomm Aims To Serve Japan High-Tech BREW By RON HARUI Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES TOKYO -- Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) wants to quench Japanese consumers' thirst for high-tech devices with a satisfying BREW. BREW - "Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless" in geekspeak - will essentially turn an ordinary Japanese cellphone into a personal computer, said Ted Matsumoto, president of Qualcomm's Japan unit. "The dream of the network computer will be realized in a mobile environment," he told Dow Jones Newswires in a recent interview. The U.S. wireless-technology firm hopes to offer a sophisticated cellphone with KDDI Corp. (J.KDD or 9433) in the near future that can run and download software applications over the air from the carriers' servers, allowing users to customize the super-phones. It won't be easy to impress gadget-crazy Japanese consumers, who think nothing of sending e-mail by cellphone and for whom zapping photos and ever video through cyberspace via mobile phone is no longer new. But while less ambitious than the cellphone-as-PC plan, BREW services have proven themselves in South Korea since last autumn, where KT Freetel Co. Ltd. (Q.KTF) customers can use their cellphones for access to applications such as entertainment and games. Whether BREW services will take off in Japan enough to help Qualcomm's bottom line remains to be seen. Qualcomm, which has seen its share price tumble in the past month over accounting concerns, this week reaffirmed its earnings outlook for the year through March. "It's hard to say" whether BREW-capable cellphones will be a hit with Japan's notoriously fickle consumers, said telecom analyst Mark Berman at Credit Suisse First Boston. "It's early days." Stalking A Killer - Application The high-power phones might, however, give a boost to KDDI. Japan's No. 2 telecom carrier, which says it wants to serve up BREW-capable cellphones in the "very near future." KDDI could draw customers away from cellphone leader NTT DoCoMo (J.NTX or 9437) and Japan Telecom Co.'s (J.JTC or 9434) No. 3 J-Phone Group, "if they can differentiate themselves in terms of content and offer value-added services," Berman said. "BREW makes it easy for developers to create applications that will ultimately drive demand," he said. "It's a chance for KDDI to turn things around, but there's a lot to do - the quality of the handsets and the types of content." KDDI is proceeding smoothly in preparing the BREW-capable cellphones, said KDDI President Tadashi Onodera, although he declined to say when they might go on sale. Qualcomm's Matsumoto said his firm is in an excellent position to introduce BREW globally because there are about 100 million subscribers to Qualcomm's "CDMAOne" cellphones worldwide, he said. "More than 70% of those subscribers' handsets are using Qualcomm's chip set and software," Matsumoto said. KDDI uses "CDMAOne," Qualcomm's current CDMA (code division multiple access) digital wireless technology. Matsumoto said an advantage to CDMA technology is that cellphones can be upgraded like PCs with just the addition of software. One potential "killer" BREW application Qualcomm hopes to bring to Japan in the future with KDDI will allow users globally to teleconference by cellphone at the touch of a button, he said. The application, called "QChat," is "another secret weapon of Qualcomm," Matsumoto said. BREW For The Road? Some researchers forecasts Japan's mobile phone market will peak at 80 million subscribers, but Matsumoto said the nation's automobile market remains relatively untapped by wireless carriers. Japan has 73.2 million mobile phone subscribers, 58% of the nation's population, while there are 70 million cars. "These will be equipped with mobile communications in the near future, Matsumoto said. He envisions Japanese cars eventually being built with theft-proof wireless global-positioning systems and car-navigation systems much smaller than the tiny-TV sized gadgets already ubiquitous in Japan. "We want to put our chip set in every car in Japan in the future," Matsumoto said. With a Qualcomm "MSM5100" chip set in your car, he said, a thief would literally have to tear the vehicle apart and remove the chips, or know that the global-positioning technology would pinpoint his location for the police. While car navigation systems already exist, manufacturers of such systems could use chips to reduce the size of the systems by getting rid of bulky DVD players and DVDs. "We hope Japanese car component makers will use our chip set," Matsumoto said. Denso Corp. (J.NND or 6902) and some other Japanese companies manufacture car components for the nation's automakers, such as Toyota Motor Corp. (TM or 7203) and Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY or 7201). Toyota is considering adopting KDDI's wireless telecommunications technology for use in its "G-Book" service, according to KDDI. Toyota's "G-Book" service is expected to provide a wide range of information including entertainment. -By Ron Harui, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; ron.harui@dowjones.com Updated February 28, 2002 7:41 p.m. EST