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

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (8657)	2/19/1998 11:02:00 AM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero: As I have noted before, swapping IPR is not like changing from Coke to Pepsi. If Qualcomm's IPR is a fundamental enabling technology, then its value with be derived in proportion to the cost and ability of its potential licensees to design around or otherwise circumvent the innovation. Without understanding the specific IPR, how can you opine as to the merits of QC's royalty request. Other than your arbitrary and capricious opinion that 2%-5% is too much, what fact basis supports this conclusion? Have you (can you?) attempted to calibrated the costs (time & R&D) to design around QC's technology? Do you know even if it can even be done at all without compromising the end product? If you don't know, then your perspective as to the appropriateness of QC's royalty demands is unsubstantiated and worthless. Your argument about returns related to GSM-overlays and W-CDMA is similarly poorly constructed. The recently released study clearly demonstrated greater merit to the overlay model than to the greenfield model. Therefore, QC can develop a lucrative revenue stream by extending the life of the current GSM installed base AND it will participate in 3G either through the extention of IS-95 or through W-CDMA. This would seem to blow a large hole in your belief that QC will be relegated to a niche position. As I see it, the sponsors of W-CDMA are several years away from shipping their first base station. In the interim, these companies have publicly admitted that the CDMA air interface is superior (else why abandon TDMA-based GSM for W-CDMA). This should enhance the worldwide marketability of IS-95--which will likely have evolved and shipped its own BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE 3G standard well prior to W-CDMA's commercial availability. For icing on the cake, QC will get a royalty stream from W-CDMA. And, be positioned, if it so desired, to support and manufacture W-CDMA equipment. So, as I see it, your Nordic fraternity has just raised the white flag. Instead of pushing ahead with TDMA-based GSM, a market where QC could not participate, it is going forward with some form of direct sequence spread spectrum (i.e. CDMA) that will ultimately involve QC's IPR and provide Qualcomm with a seat at the table. Gregg

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (8657)	2/19/1998 11:08:00 AM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero, a few questions. Your posts seem to imply that W-CDMA is a "QCOM not welcomed" standard, except for a few patents that QCOM holds. How dare QCOM be asking 2-5% fro their IPRs. Is it possible that while all the debates are going on, which could last years, QCOM is developing a CDMA based solution? qdog, is it technically possible to have a path from CDMA/GSM overlay then to W-CDMA? If yes, who would be in a better place than QCOM to come up with the solution? Further more, by the year 2000, the US cellular market is expected to be 80 million subscribers. What is the total number of subscribers for all the European countries combined? The battle for new markets are not going to be 3G but WLL. A combination of fixed wireless and roaming wireless should attract far more subscribers than a phone that can down load a full length video. ERICY and Nokia are good companies but ERICY's style of trying to shut out QCOM by any means possible can only work in medieval Europe and not the new world. Ramsey

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (8657)	2/19/1998 6:40:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 152472

Tero Tora Tora, with Gregg on site and kindly providing his incisive analysis, it seems a bit unfair to pick your comments to bits as well. But he left something out of his comments on the royalties those companies say Qualcomm was wanting, namely 2% to 5%. While Gregg's central theme is true that it is the cost of designing around the patents which determines whether the royalties asked are reasonable or not, we should remember the famous trill of Ericsson, Frezza and the "GSM Nazis". Anyone not liking that reference can read back over Bill Frezza's comments including his very last comment on the issue - that I'm aware of anyway - and also see the propaganda by the European Socialist Party of Telecommunications Collective Heaven. They say Qualcomm should donate their labor for the greater good of the collective [which loosely translates to "us"]. I know it offends you Gregg, but the games these people play are a step on that road to ruin where IPR and other property and lives are disposed of by the collective for the greater good. The greater good invariably translates to the "current boss and his pals". Anyway, before I get onto politics, recovering my mantle from that interloper Su, yes, we all saw your gratuitous attempt to slide into political mode Ramsey in your last sentence, 2% to 5% seems in my admittedly capricious and ill-informed opinion a cheap price. The famous trill of Frezza, Ericsson and co? "First to market!" Ad nauseum. Well, guess who was first to market with what all now admit is the winning wireless. While it might cost Ericsson only a few hundred million to develop cdmaTwo, it will be much too late. There are only another 9 years or so to run on many patents, so a quick DCF in my head says that 5.34159% royalties agreed to now is about exactly right. That will mean instant access for Ericsson to the market in which they have a huge share which they are already losing at increasing pace. Nokia didn't muck about. They bought licenses and are selling cdmaOne. Good for them. They make great phones. Ericsson will perhaps go shopping for a licensee and pour money into them to expand their production - maybe a Korean company. Mqurice

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (8657)	2/20/1998 12:04:00 AM
From: qdog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

I have an article that the head of NTT said that the opposite and posted as much on this thread!! Forget it Tero. I'm not in the mood to debate with a narrow minded Nordic jerk. Been their, done that. I put my technical ability against yours or any from Nokia any day. Speaking of, I notice that Nokia won't talk about royalties?? They are ashamed to admit that they receive royalties on IPR's?? Pfttt!! Let me waste my life researching a novel way to do something and receive a butt fucking from the company. That maybe fine in your country, but in mine....SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!