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

To: straight life who wrote (24469)	7/8/2002 3:45:17 PM
From: saukriver	Respond to of 197321

Maybe I skimmed "Tollbooth Technology Meets the Checkout Lane" too fast but I missed the QCOM connection. Where is it? Several years ago, people were all jazzed about "m-commerce." What SpeedPass etc. are doing with RFID is a slightly more low-tech version than what some people had in mind. The article states: "Mobile commerce" once conjured up visions of the masses buying movie tickets and all sorts of merchandise on the go from their cellphones. But that vision, like so many overblown Internet expectations, never quite materialized. The high-speed wireless technology needed for such transactions has been slow to reach the market, mainly because it is so expensive. Cellphones, with their tiny keypads, have proved too cumbersome for much more than talking. By contrast, RFID technology is about speed and ease of use. "There's a lot of technology in the marketplace, but this is customer-focused and simplifies peoples' lives," said Charles Clayton, programs manager for the Speedpass payment system at Exxon Mobil." To me, it is an example of wireless technology that may prove "good enough." The other facet is whether the cellphone is a good platform for more than voice ("Cellphones, with their tiny keypads, have proved too cumbersome for much more than talking."). So, the connxtns to QCOM are (1) whether other wireless technologies will prove good enough for the express payment application and (2) whether people will fiddle with the cellphones enough to make the hopes for wireless data (something beyond voice) a reality.