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

To: Asterisk who wrote (8702)	2/20/1998 4:35:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Respond to of 152472

Hi Michael, Your quote is positive in its tone, but nowhere does the NTT representative explicitly state that 3G will be backwards compatible with IS-95. "NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. (NTT DoCoMo) and Qualcomm Inc. of the United States, two majors in the cellular phone industry, have agreed to promote technological exchanges toward a global standard for next-generation cellular phone technology, an NTT DoCoMo spokesman said Thursday." "''I personally believe that Qualcomm will also benefit from global standardization, because it would make it possible for the maker to sell the same cellular phones anywhere in the world,'' he said." I'm not seeing any show of commitment here. Compare this to the statement made by an NTT-Docomo executive to Finnish press last summer, where the guy unequivocally stated that NTT wants a 3G standard that is backwards compatible with GSM. I'm sure that NTT wants the 3G to be compatible with IS-95. But W-CDMA is not developed for that. And Japan is not ready to lose the installed GSM base. It's a little late now to start making huge changes to the standard. When NTT has to choose, the 100 million GSM users existing in 2001 will probably be too much to bypass. Somebody raised the comparison about USA-Europe mobile phone users and which market is bigger. This is a straw man if I ever saw one. The issue is the market for digital phone users and USA will not catch up with Europe any time soon, saddled as it is with analog users and fragmented digital market place. More importantly, the final equation will be Europe + Asia vs. USA + Korea. W-CDMA is Japan's ploy to get access to Europe's GSM market. And it is used by the Nordic companies to strengthen their hand in Asia. These combined GSM/W-CDMA markets will dwarf the IS-95 domain. Ericsson has currently 50% market share in Chinese mobile equipment market. China is set to become Nokia's biggest customer this year, overtaking USA. Half a dozen SEA countries backed the Nordic W-CDMA proposal and Japan will be opened to current GSM companies in a big way when it starts implementing W-CDMA. Qualcomm's position in Asia is tenuous indeed when compared to that. Regarding "fighting words"; my tone may not always be neutral but at least I'm able to refrain from using obscenities and derogatory terms in describing my opponents. With my Karelian temper, this is an achievement. And as you well know, it's more than several people in this thread can achieve. I do appreciate your advice, though. Have a nice morning yourself. And hedge your QCOM ownership heavily with NOKA. Tero