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

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (11123)	6/4/1998 4:40:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 152472

Gregg, I have found your debates with Tero to be a wonderful further education in the most important issues facing Qcom. I think you both make good points, but where you disagree with him directly, you persuade me. On the other hand, I think Nokia does have some real momentum going for them and has developed real handset manufacturing prowess...and isn't about to be knocked for a loop by Qcom anytime soon. You have not really taken issue with that, but rather with Tero's dire predictions for Q. Tero seems on weakest ground to me in his analysis of the W-CDMA/ CDMA 2000 wars. You are especially persuasive (and reassuring) there. Which is of course a very big deal longer term. To focus on the intermediate term, the next six months, for a moment. My question to you has to do with Korea. 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. Certainly the June quarter expectations at .27 are low. But the Sept. quarter expectations at .48 anticipate some considerable Korean recovery (among other things) by then, don't they? And more so for the December quarter? My concern is that my guess is that the Korean economy will be worse in the September ended quarter and worse still in the one ended December, than it has been or is to date. Real world recessions take a while to bite their worst, especially in an economy such as Korea, where layoffs are not part of the cultural norm. Hence I expect that at least domestic cellular sales will decline markedly by year end from current levels. Certainly I think that is more likely than a strong recovery by then. The issue of Korean handset exports is less clear to me. Financing is a major issue, even if the economics aside from financing are more favorable. If I am right on Korea, don't the Sept. and Dec. Street estimates have to come down?? This is a genuine question. I'm not sure those estimates after June bake in a Korean recovery, but I suspect they do. While I expect it to get worse. Until sometime next calendar year. Doug

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (11123)	6/4/1998 5:16:00 PM
From: gdichaz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

To Gregg: Still learning. Thank you. One question I have had nagging me from the George Gilder stuff is where if anywhere the "smart" or "software" radios such as Tellabs has been working on fit into the potential 3rd generation debate, if at all. Mike claims privilege for lack of tech smarts, so I will just admit tech dull. If and that is a big if, I understand smart or software radios they can be installed in base stations and receive signals of any frequency, or any flavor (CDMA, GSM (???) and convert to a single standard for further processing or transmission. This is well into the future, if it happens at all, but might emerge from Tellabs or others around the time the 3rd generation of CDMA in whatever form or flavor it might take. Any comment on this? Assume the Q would have plenty of resources for a smart or software radio too if that were useful. Any comment on this? Also anyone with tech smarts is welcome to chime in here - that's anyone here [except Mike who counts himself out :-)]

To: Gregg Powers who wrote (11123)	6/5/1998 10:37:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 152472

Gregg, I respect your opinions, but if you claim that it is perfectly normal for a small company like Qualcomm to be simultaneously building up a complete line of mobile phone products from scratch, selling infrastructure equipment based on a novel standard, building itself a global brand, acting as an operator, developing a new 3G standard and involving the rest of the world's telecom companies in complex litigation, you're totally out on a limb. There is nothing reasonable in this megalomania. Once again, companies like Lucent, Motorola, Philips, Sony and Alactel have suffered in the handset business. To think that Qualcomm with its much more limited experience in brand building, marketing and manufacturing won't stumble is very unlikely. The last ten months support my view. It's not impossible Qualcomm will suddenly metamorphose into a succesful handset company. It's not unconceivable. But it's unplausible. People can say that they trust in this company and that they believe it is much savvier than Phillips, Lucent, Alcatel, Sony and Motorola. That's their opinion. But calling my opinion "uneducated, wishful thinking" when I'm only stating the obvious; an opinion apparently shared by Wall Street and many industry experts, is mere bullying. It's the kind of personally insulting, gratuitous slur meant only to discredit your opponent and return the usual "Stepford Wives"-styled surreal consensus to this thread. The quality problems of Qualcomm phones have not been limited to QCP family from what I've read, the company's pricing policy is widely derided and there is a real possibility that new products will face problems as well, simply due to inexperience and judging from past performance. Saying this aloud does not make anyone uneducated, jingoistic, extreme or silly. Neither does stating that Asia will be a bigger problem than Qualcomm is letting on. Do you genuinely expect that this company would let you in on any problems they might be experiencing? Does nobody here remember how Qualcomm recently made a complete turn-around just weeks after announcing everything is hunky-dory and suddenly revealed their handset problems? Doesn't the amateurish and clumsy way this happened reflect in any way on the company? I think it does. Anyone can believe that changing the chiprate won't affect the W-CDMA in any adverse way, but they are just buying the Qualcomm company line in doing so. Nothing tells me that Qualcomm is more reliable, credible or technologically able company than Ericsson, certainly not their respective manufacturing and quality reputations. Since I've already gone out on the limb by making a prediction(unlike most people on this thread, who tend to make their projections so open-ended that they can't be verified... more power to John), there's little reason for descending into mudslinging. Next January we'll see how these six months unfolded. There's a real possibility that I'm wrong and if so, I'll acknowledge it. But if Qualcomm is still in doldrums by -99 New Year, I think it is starting to tell something about the credibility of the company. Tero