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

To: Jim Mullens who wrote (30476)	12/27/2002 11:35:05 AM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196694

You’ve got to give AT&T credit as they appear to be PR and marketing experts at turning a big negative into a positive. Yes, the press release was indeed an effort to spin the announcement as a positive. I was very pleased, however, at the quick response from numerous reports which quickly put this announcement in its correct context, i.e., as a significant delay to existing plans. I did find it interesting to note how some reported this as AWE would have liked, and essentially ignored the delay issue entirely, but this was not true in the mainstream. I think AWE is making a mistake in attributing any slowdown in their plans to lack of demand. Sure it allows them to pretend that they're not at fault in any way, it's the fickle customer who's causing all their problems. The trouble is that sometimes these prophesies become self fulfilling and if prospective customers read too much too often about how 3G doesn't really offer anything that good anyway, then when it is ready demand will actually be soft. Competitive marketing is a very complicated thing and it's hard to predict how everything will turn out. Bashing your customer's product while touting yours, even assuming that the differences are really there, can backfire. Many years ago there was a heated campaign in the coffee business where the major players each accused the other guy's coffee of being bitter, and suggested customers switch. The net result was customers "realizing" after all that coffee was indeed bitter and switching to tea in record numbers. Everyone lost.