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

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11107)	6/4/1998 11:06:00 AM
From: Mark Fleming	Respond to of 152472

Could anyone summarize who, if anyone, might be interested in buying QCOM and why?

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11107)	6/4/1998 11:41:00 AM
From: J.B.C.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Let me take poetic license to your writings in just one area: * Ericsson has overplayed its hand in the W-CDMA debate. It will have to accept fees considerably higherer than 5%, it will have to make W-CDMA compatible with IS-95, it will get involved in horrible litigation with Qualcomm which unnerves investors, it possibly gets finessed completely out of W-CDMA; pick any two of the above. With all your writings, the message can be written to look like Ericssons in for rough times as well, it DOES cut both ways. Tero your envy is obvious, whether it begins with a P or Q, I don't know.

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11107)	6/4/1998 11:58:00 AM
From: rhet0ric	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero, It seems to me that Qualcomm's success hinges to a large extent on whether its CDMA IPR becomes part of W-CDMA or not. If so, all of the potential problems you listed would be seen as temporary setbacks to a great future for Qualcomm; if not, Qualcomm does indeed have a struggle ahead of it. So it's up to the GSM players in the W-CDMA camp to decide: which is worse, developing W-CDMA without Qualcomm, paying for the engineering and possible delays, developing a non-IS-95 compatible standard, and fighting it out in court; or, conceding IS-95 backward compatibility, negotiating a license fee for Qualcomm, and moving forward. That looks like a tough call to me. The swing vote is really in the hands of companies who are developing both technologies. Either they will line up against Qualcomm, or against Ericsson. If I were a Nokia or Motorola, I would want W-CDMA to be compatible with my IS-95 phones, and I would see Ericsson as the bigger competitive threat. So I would go with Qualcomm, perhaps even buy it. Why alienate your IS-95 user base, and bail out Ericsson, by ditching Qualcomm? rhet0ric

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11107)	6/4/1998 1:46:00 PM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero: Let me take a crack at your wish list. Qualcomm has already reported its second quarter, so your timeline is off. But to address the substance rather than the form, I would argue that the odds of another Qualcomm earnings disappointment are extremely low. First, Street expectations are very modest. Second, Korea's impact on the second and third quarter (March & June) is primarily a function of the "surprise" factor. That is, the company's cost structure anticipated greater revenue than was realized because of the shortfall in Korea ASIC revenues compounded by QPE's manufacturing problem. Given that QC management has now adopted a very conservative posture with respect to Asian revenue, I see little likelihood of the company being bitten by the same bug twice. Third, Qualcomm's infrastructure revenue is ramping up rapidly as shipments proceed through Nortel and into Chile and Ukraine. Few investors seem to understand just how meaningful the infrastructure start-up losses have been and I suspect most will be equally surprised when the company's underlying earnings power is unmasked. Finally, management's credibility took a pretty good hit back in February and, given the company's high levels of discretionary spending, I think is it extraordinarily unlikely that Irwin would allow a double dip. I suspect that AT&T will take some share with its rate plan, although this presumption discounts the competitive response. On the other hand, US-TDMA (IS-136) is a truly dismal standard from a voice quality standpoint. I have spoken to several people with the new Nokia phone and given the number of dropped calls and the "warbly" voice quality, I think ATT has an uphill battle--but I don't discount ATT's marketing clout. I do think the GSM community has battle given its limited footprint and the pending standards battle over W-CDMA. Other than a new handset, you haven't given us any compelling reason why this technology should accelerate above trendline. The dual-mode 'Q' phone is a splendid product. Have you seen it? It has the same basic form factor as the PCS 'Q', but with no external antenna. Carriers such as Airtouch are prominently advertising it because they believe it will provide an important competitive differentiator. As a dual mode phone, it does not suffer from the coverage problems of single mode PCS unit so it should be very attractive to high-end customers. Production is ramping as we speak, and given the commonality of the basic form factor with the "already-in-production" PCS 'Q', I would completely discount your concern about production volumes. Finally, the 'Q' phone didn't suffer from the connector problem; that issue involved the commodity 'QCP' product family, so this portion of your comment is simple mistaken. I don't have anything intelligent to add about Bluetooth because products are more difficult to create than press releases. We shall see. Will Asian problems continue? Certainly. Has QC management baked a slowdown in Asian into the business outlook, absolutely. As I have said repeatedly, QC's Korean business is a function of both domestic consumption and foreign export sales. Samsung, LG and others are seeing rapid export growth. This is best illustrated by Motorola recent investment in a Korean handset company (Pantech) which subsequently announced that it expected to ship $300mm worth of handsets to China (so it also appear that at least a few Chinese are interested in CDMA). Also, Wall Street's expectations for the Korean domestic market are currently very low as most analysts expect fewer than four million subscribers... Given the 2.5mm net-adds through April, and continued heavy marketing by service provides, Korea would probably have to descend into another currency crisis to create a shortfall from expectations. As for Japan, clearly the economy is struggling, but DDI/IDO are launching virgin networks and will be marketing heavily. My latest feedback is that QC's ASIC shipments into Japan are increasing and that a number of handset vendors are very close to commercial availability. With equipment vendors facing contractual requirements for delivery, it strikes me that handset availability will not be much of an issue. Meanwhile, Motorola's equipment has struggled under rapid loading..that is, sign too many customers up too quickly and network performance begins to degrade. Beyond ongoing improvements (i.e. MOT claims to have resolved these problems in its Japanese deployment), this instability would only become an issue if lots and lots Japanese customers were signed up. Finally, one should not underestimate the power of marketing. Even in poor, economically devastated Korea, almost one million subscribers signed up in April. Since the Japanese are much richer and their economy far less troubled, I think you are painting an excessively bearish picture. Your comment that Qualcomm has continued to underplay the Korean situation is just plain silly. Obviously you have not spoken to the company or you would know that management is being extremely conservative with its guidance. Moreover, management's reticence on the Korean topic has probably been excessive and has resulted in Wall Street's near paranoia regarding the topic. Finally, your comment that QC has overplayed its hand is simply uneducated, wishful thinking. Since you are not conversant in specific technological issues, nor are you expert in patent litigation or intellectual property rights, your position is simply predicated on what you hope will happen rather than what you know to be true. While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, it has no more validity than Frezza's similarly well considered claims that CDMA would an "unmitigated disaster at 800mhz". Gregg

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11107)	6/4/1998 8:33:00 PM
From: John Cuthbertson	Respond to of 152472

"What's it gonna be? Huh? Would you say Qualcomm will outperform Nokia in the next six months?" Hi Tero, Well, this proposition strikes me as what we Americans colloquially call a "lead pipe cinch." I will happily wager you a dollar against a markka that Qualcomm will outperform Nokia in the next six months. (Let's base this on today's US closing price of $51 for QCOM and $66.06 for Nokia's ADR -- ok?). Be seeing you, John P.S. Have you in fact owned Nokia over the last 6 months? If so, congratulations are due you!

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11107)	6/5/1998 1:51:00 AM
From: Bux	Respond to of 152472

Terro, I gotta hand it to you. You are won intellygint guy. I will put my money where yur mouth is becuz you are so sucksinct in yur analesis and prophetizing. You must no sumpthing we qualcum investers have been missing. Becuz of that i sold all my Qalcum and am getting Ericksun heck, qalcum hasnt don much since i got in at 72 but go down. You no what they say.. jump off the ship before it sinks. Oh, and while were on the subjict, i didnt even know that erikson made flagships. I hear that yahcts are selling reel good, we will make lotsa money in that secter alone. And Im glad to here that Qalcum will have to accept a royaltie less than five percent... who did they think they were anyhow?... We gonna sell so many dam phones they be happy with the half percent we give em. And even that be a waste, I know and you know who perfeckted cdma. Who wuold stay in this stock now that it is obvius it is in the fortees until decembur? You wuold have to be stoopid or sumthing dont you think? PS Terro half my mesage came out red when i tried to send it. Why is that? It must be a good omin or sumthing.