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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (11100)	6/3/1998 7:20:00 PM
From: Sawtooth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

All: Today's mail brought the July issue of Red Herring, which is virtually dedicated to wireless communications, including satellites. Pulls together in a nice format all the stuff that's being talked about on the various communications threads. Hot tub material for this evening at my house. Worth the few bucks if you don't subscribe. Regards. ...Tim

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (11100)	6/4/1998 10:27:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 152472

OK, Maurice, let's see whether I'll do better than Frezza. I can't do much worse. I'll be back, as my fellow European put it... in November to gloat/admit defeat. Possibly both. * Qualcomm will issue a profit warning before November or report disappointing second and/or third quarter results. * TDMA & GSM will do better than expected in the US market this year due to flagship models by Ericsson and Nokia currently pushed in the States combined with the aggressive new ATT pricing policy. That won't prevent CDMA from dominating the US market, but it will mean a substantial market share for TDMA/GSM. * Qualcomm's new phone due to be delivered in summer will either be delayed, have too slow production ramp-up, experience quality problems or face so stiff price competition from Asian companies it won't make profit. Q-phone never made a cent, did it? After the quality problems and sales set-backs it never made back the investment in it. More of the same with the new model. * Both Ericsson and Nokia will get the Bluetooth technology implemented considerably sooner than Qualcomm. * Asian problems continue; implementation of CDMA in China is slow, GSM adds millions of subscribers each month; CDMA launch in Japan bogs down with Motorola's problematic network equipment/lack of competitive handsets/recession slowing sales, pick any two of those; Korean depression (let's face it, gang) will be reflected on the subscriber growth before year's end... 10% unemployment will be an unprecedentent mood damper & militant labour unions get scary. * Qualcomm has underplayed the importance of Korea for its bottom line in hopes of a quick recovery, it has to face the facts this year. * Qualcomm has overplayed its hand in the W-CDMA debate. It will have to accept fees considerably lower than 5%, it won't be able to make W-CDMA compatible with IS-95, it will get involved in horrible litigation with Ericsson (whose suit against Qualcomm will go to court next fall) which unnerves investors, it possibly gets finessed completely out of W-CDMA; pick any two of the above. * Irwin Jacobs does a nimble little tap dance and once again charismatically explains that the troubles are almost over and the check is in the mail. I guarantee not all of the eight points will be realized. But if four of them will materialize, it will keep this stock flirting with forties until December -97. Do not try to wiggle out of this next winter by pointing out one of two instances where I was wrong... I'm saying it's just mostly right. Which will be enough. Show me some antipodean guts, Maurice, and go out on a limb... what's your alternative? What's it gonna be? Huh? Would you say Qualcomm will outperform Nokia in the next six months? Will we see a slow-down in GSM sales growth? I dare you... Sincerely yours, Tero

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (11100)	6/5/1998 5:51:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

"At some point, the line will be crossed between failure and fraud. Some say it has already been crossed. That will ultimately be up to a judge to decide" Bill Frezza Oct 1996. Here we are only 18 months later and the only judges being involved are those required to reject Ericsson's pathetic attempts to stymie cdma2000 development. I suppose you could also call the USA Congressional Committee on telecommunications a courtroom too. They will arbitrate on the world's attempt to cadge some cheap IPR from Qualcomm and anticompetitive standards setting procedures. Doubters and worriers, go back in history. Irwin, Andrew, Klein and others have a long history. Qualcomm has only a 12 year history. Look at growth, direction, technical developments, licensing history, cdmaOne market development, competitor actions and words. There is a lot to look at. Constant gains. There was even at one time serious talk of a class action lawsuit - very amusingly at a time when Qualcomm shares were at an all time high. I'd be inclined to play very hardball and allow cdmaOne IPR to be used by all except L M Ericsson. If we are going to play chicken while driving a bulldozer, with USA State as Big Brother, we might as well raise the stakes. Or maybe set the licence fees so high that about 15% of manufacturers balk at the price and refuse an agreement. That would strike a happy balance between too expensive and too cheap, while ensuring cdma2000 technical and market development, with many suppliers. It would also ensure competition, which everyone seems to claim they love, since those 15% without cdma2000 would need to come up with some other trick to compete with the cdma2000 crowd. Without the financial disadvantage of royalties to Qualcomm Inc they might be able to establish a cheaper competitive standard. I hope Qualcomm/Lucent/Northern Telecom/CDG is ploughing/plowing ahead with cdma2000. Just bring the gadgets out and sell them. Ericsson and co are probably happy for developments to take years so they can roll out lots more GSM. In a couple of years, cdma2000 will simply be the defacto standard and there won't be need for discussion. Mqurice PS:you can use cdma in fibre, but I can't recall who's doing it. I'm not sure that you can move electrons in the right way for cdma so perhaps not in copper. Gravitonic cdma is even better. You vary your gravity field = distant effects, no attenuation, spin up/down as the digital characteristic.... Still under development.