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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (126156)	12/23/2002 11:26:31 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

New CDMA units boast 3G features Mongkol Jullayothin Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia Co has introduced the first CDMA 1X handsets in the local mobile phone market, hoping to become the first to provide high-speed multimedia wireless services in the country. Operating under the brand name Hutch, the company said the third-generation (3G) technology would debut next year with a full range of multimedia services. Chief executive officer Stephen Sun said the first phase would target Greater Bangkok, with services to the eastern and western regions launched shortly afterward. Unlike existing wireless services that focussed mainly on messaging, Hutch would focus mainly on multimedia services, for which special handsets were required. The handsets, produced by Sanyo of Japan, enable users to send and receive photographs and mail with a built-in camera and Thai input for SMS. The services would be provided within the company's network initially, and would later be integrated with those of other players, said Stephen Ngan, the company's chief operating officer. Mr Sun said the company had been in talks with handset producers in Japan and Korea about new products since the CDMA service was widely used in those countries. At the same time, he said, handset and service prices were being reviewed in order to ensure good value for money. Mr Sun said that while handset prices were falling, Hutchison's price strategy would be to provide a range of affordable services to users. The company is a joint venture between the Communications Authority of Thailand and Hong Kong-based Hutchison Wireless MultiMedia Holding.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (126156)	12/30/2002 12:19:58 AM
From: Stock Farmer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Precisely. It's a matter of price. Five billion people paying $19.99 five years from now (when the price is right for them, not us) delivers much less economic value than a billion paying $99.99 today. That's the heart of it. Estimating the value of Qualcomm by the multiplying the behavior of the early adopter technowackos by the size of the larger market is a sure-fire recipe for paying too much. You'll get no dispute from me whether or not wireless communication will blanket the planet. Folks were saying the same thing about RCA as you are saying about Qualcomm. And they were right. Sort of. You run the risk of being just as right and not any better off. More interesting from the perspective of an investor is the size of the pile that the providers can expect to accumulate. And which providers. And in what time frame. The flaw in most logic so far has been the tacit assumption that the pile will be large ENOUGH and exist soon ENOUGH to make paying $40 a pop for a share of Qualcomm's share of the pile worth while and then some. Or whatever price between $23 and $123 (and then some) it happens to have been trading at within the past three years. Which has been quite obviously a duffer's game. Look back and calibrate your own pile-sizing acumen. Were you not making similar claims as they related to Globalstar? And where is it today? Tremendous potential, to be sure. But it's silly to pay full price for potential alone. Particularly when presented with the innumerable missteps from the pure path that mere mortals charged with running a company occasionally stumble into making. Such as an entire division of such strategic import that even management recommends we just pro-forma it away. Or particularly when dealing with biased, fuzzy minded and technically illiterate parties in the value chain. Such as consumers who don't care as much about the complicated physics going on within the gizmo as they do about the color of the faceplate, and who tend to put their money only where they care. Or even more particularly with business value propositions vulnerable to erosion by widespread adoption of substitute technologies which are obviously disruptive. But only in hindsight. Such as WiFi (might turn out to be). Sure, Globalstar COULD have been big. It just wasn't. What does that suggest? Reality merely intrudes. So when buying something that MIGHT be big, it's often useful to pay less than top dollar for what it MIGHT be worth. 'Cause usually it turns out to be worth less. A lot less in most cases. John