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

To: limtex who wrote (10888)	5/26/1998 6:47:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Ok Limtex, you did ask me a while back "what now?" Without sending a cheque in the post, which would have elicited a faster response. Firstly, to all, here is the news, in 20:20 hindsight, about Korea's woes. Fear about Korea from November until now saw Qualcomm's share price pasted. From the url Jim Lurgio gave, this about Korea: "According to industry estimates, exports of cellular terminals increased 64 percent to US$253 million in the first quarter of this year from US$154 million a year ago. If the trend continues, total exports of cellular devices will reach US$1.5 billion this year, up 76 percent year-on-year. That will make mobile telephones Korea's third-largest electronic export item after semiconductors and computer monitors. It means more Korean-made hand sets will be sold than color TV sets." Does that really seem bad news? I think a 64% increase is okay. And the projected 76% is better - indeed a rising trend. Bluetooth is going to link all the electronic gizmoes in the world using Mighty-Q's very own cdmaOne technology. Maybe Qualcomm will allow a reduced royalty rate for Bluetooth, which seems set to be a wild success with all backing it and a market of enormous proportions. Limtex, you should buy Qualcomm still. Discussions about technical excellence do have something to do with making money from investments. But it is only part of the story. Without the technical exactitudes, you will definitely fail [unless dumbly lucky]. But there are management, market types and all the infinite array of things which also determine success and have to be right too. And Tero makes a good point that there is more to cellphones than an interface. Customers buy the whole deal. Nokia does a great package with GSM. cdmaOne on the handset side is trying to catch up. They can, because Nokia and 25 others are on the case. GSM has had a good run with continuing handset improvements holding the fort for them. But eventually, GSM reaches its limits. And they are much more limiting than cdmaOne inherent limits. Hence all are after the cdmaOne world and must participate to profit. If you switch to Nokia now, because you have seen Qualcomm's share price sit in the doldrums, while Nokia has sprinted to the sky on GSM and analog sales, you will sell at the bottom and buy at the high. Which I'm sure you know is the wrong way round. You need to find a concentrated beneficiary of cdmaOne developments if you think wireless is the best field to invest in. Motorola isn't it. Neither is Ericsson. All roads lead to San Diego. Check out the management, history, morality, financial strength, market size, intellectual property etc etc etc and it all looks good. They've had some snafus with keypads, NextWave, 2 year delay getting to market, teething problems with network design, very competitive GSM developments, but nothing of dire proportions. Tero is about the most reasoned critic and his reviews don't make me blink - critics and competitors are good, because they do their worst. Bill Frezza never really got past foaming at the mouth. He made a few worthwile, but insubstantial points. Being technically competent and operating a vendetta, he could be expected to find the weakest points. There were few weak points he could find. Ericsson did it's best to put people off CDMA -though they now claim to be High Priest! Talk about conversions. And they've had the cheek to hang BlueTooth [some Viking thug] on the wireless gizmo links system. Personally, I think "Kiwi" is a better name; key to the gadget and a wee little thing. You say QCOM natural price is the 40s? Okay, let's see! Mqurice Tero: Qualcomm has voracity and veracity!

To: limtex who wrote (10888)	5/26/1998 10:04:00 PM
From: DTA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Limtex- As a continuously disappointed shareholder I appreciate your sentiments--after all the primary object here is making money, not making arguments about technical, manufacturing, or management prowess. While we faithful have had to content ourselves with a belief that Q stock would eventually deliver, we have been surrounded by those whose investments have actually delivered despite so-called inferior technologies, business models, you name it. The argument that Q is a relatively new enterprise and is therefore allowed to make mistakes is a loser's rationale. This is not a school project. While few Q disciples agree with Tero's view, it is difficult not to realize that investing in old technology Nokia one year ago would have been a much better move. But in 2 years, Q could be... DTA

To: limtex who wrote (10888)	5/27/1998 4:07:00 PM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Limtex, with all due respect, greed and impatience are dangerous adversaries of wealth creation. If you had bought QC's IPO, and gone into a cave, you would have compounded your capital at roughly 30% per year to date. Not astronomical relative to the market's recent performance (and many investors' overblown expectations), but hardly a poor investment. Depending on when or where you bought the stock during ensuing periods, your annualized return could be much higher or much lower. Fine. But whining about the stock's "resilience" or plaintively stating that its home is "in the forties" is just plain silly, as are comparisons to Nokia or Ericsson. Since nobody is compelling you to invest in telecom equipment, you could just as easily compare QC to Yahoo, Hewlett Packard or Eastman Kodak. The sector is less important than the stock selection process. However, with regard to Nokia (or Ericsson) versus Qualcomm, I would argue that you are comparing apples and oranges. Nokia and Ericsson are today reaping the rewards for their development and successful commercialization of GSM. They have fought a good fight and created successful worldwide digital standard and their investors have been well rewarded for their companies' good execution. The CDMA-TDMA debate is important because it transcends near-term stock performance and relates to the product cycle for the next decade. If you believe as I do that the air interface for mobile telephony is converging around direct sequence spread spectrum (i.e. IS-95 or W-CDMA), then QC should prove to be the superior investment over the next ten years (point-to-point). Nokia and Ericsson will navigate through the technological fork in the road, but their valuations already reflect their operational success and a fairly high degree of forward expectations. Qualcomm's valuation (on an absolute or relative basis) is lower and currently reflects a dismal level of investor confidence. The dichotomy between the company's internal realities and external perceptions should prove a material accelerent to appreciation once the company's fundamentals turn the corner. My venture capital experience has repeatedly taught me that the road to success is rarely linear and new technologies ALWAYS take longer to commercialize than their adherents expect. South Korea is a good example of one of the "bolts from the blue" that start-ups have to deal with. So be it. While I am disappointed when QC stumbles, in my mind, it's all part of the commercialization process. So my attention inevitably turns back to whether or not the "stumble" has impaired the long-term economic opportunity. If you don't have the stomach to understand what you own, and why you own it, I suggest you invest in something less volatile. But only a short-term oriented momentum investor would suggest that the debate between TDMA and CDMA is meaningless, since resolution of this debate will profoundly impact the long-term industry fundamentals.