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

To: Stock Farmer who wrote (124987)	11/1/2002 1:19:59 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 152472

I believe that an established pattern is likely to unfold, and you do not. The problem is that without some rudimentary knowledge of the technological and legal framework, to expostulate on what is likely to happen because of what has happened in the past is rank speculation. We are likely to see fewer and fewer abuses--piracy, copyright and patent infingement, etc.--due to China's memebrship in the WTO. It provides enforcement mechanisms against members who allow the kind of abuses I think you say will take place. The manufacture of ASICs is trivial. Getting the masks right is a pain in the rear. Nokia is not struggling to take Qualcomm's masks and fab 'em. Nokia is struggling to make its own ASICSs. Not surprising for a company that used to be in the shoe business. Big difference. Huh? While a lot of us here routinely engage in the sport of Nokia-goring, it borders on the silly to suggest that a former boot manufacturer that has somehow transformed itself into the largest global wireless equipment company cannot make an ASIC. No, CDMA ASICs are truly difficult to make. Nokia suffers at present because it initially did not give CDMA the attention it deserved. The software is unbelievable. Disabuse yourself of the notion that Nokia has somehow missed the boat but that a pirate Chinese manufacturer is going to blithely start making CDMA ASICs. I can't stress this enough, Q's lead in CDMA will be exceedingly difficult to surpass. One of the protections its IPR has against piracy is the complexity of the technology. The Chinese need and have gotten foreign help--they pay for it. Is this the forever list? Who knows and who cares. It is a list that Q controls. If a putative Chinese manufacturer theoretically wishes to make CDMA ASICs, Q is obligated only to provide similar terms to it that it has provided other licensees. The necessary protections will be in place before any license is issued. No license, no ASIC. It's really that simple. I'll try to say this as nicely as I can. You need a bit of an education on the technology and the legal framework involved. Your pronouncements are theoretical and speculative because you clearly don't have a sufficiently deep knowledge of how these things work. I don't pretened to either, but after following these matters for a few years now, I think I've finally gotten the rudiments down. It's a very complex game that I can distill to a few words with respect to the issues we are discussing: the more complex the technology, and CDMA is unbelievably complex, the better the position the holder of IPRs has in negotiating. This, after all, is the Q story.