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

To: slacker711 who wrote (62133)	4/7/2007 2:10:33 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197029

Meanwhile, on another topic, SnapTrack seems to be a bit of a dead duck with the $1bn purchase price pretty much a write off. It has been a bit like WirelessKnowledge = studiously ignored due to lack of success and eventually quietly ditched. I have wondered for some time how it's going. A week or so ago I was talking to an eminent person who knows about these things who is involved with navigation systems, namely Navman. He says that SnapTrack's design is simply inadequate for navigation. I guess from that that we can assume that SnapTrack, like Eudora, will gradually lose what toehold they have to better-designed systems with better marketing. The underlying problem is apparently the time it takes to get a fix in SnapTrack compared with the need for speed in navigation. Without evidence to the contrary, I assume my preliminary fears are correct and SnapTrack is a dead duck [or service of limited value]. But perhaps it's just an add-on to the patent bundle available at the standard rate and being zero-cost, will continue to be useful for most people who just want to know where they are sometimes. $1bn of a $71bn market capitalisation is not a lot, so I suppose it's no big deal. Barely legal fees! But $1bn here and $1bn there soon adds up to a strategic investment. A litany of loss: SnapTrack Graviton Wingcast WirelessKnowledge Globalstar Pegaso Vesper Leap Wireless International 724 Solutions still in business 724.com NetZero Iridigm PacketVideo owned by Nextwave Wireless nextwave.com Cinecom QCOM project which died. AirFiber Front Porch Communications GTRAN gtran.com HAHT Commerce xml.coverpages.org Ignition [$30 million?] businessweek.com ideaEDGE Ventures ... nobody home: ideaedge.com inviso - is this it? inviso.tv Skydesk - something still going: skydesk.com RF Micro Devices finance.yahoo.com Phone.com [now Openwave after merger] finance.yahoo.com Have I missed some? But there were some successes: Handspring ... hmmm, maybe not so successful: finance.yahoo.com PayPal Current portfolio in Strategic Investments: qualcomm.com Mqurice