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

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11444)	6/12/1998 2:04:00 PM
From: Valueman	Respond to of 152472

Tero: Compare competing products here if you would. You state: "QCP-820 and QCP-2700: 184 grams and stand-by of up to 65 hours." Nokia's competing product, the 2180, weighs in at 240 grams(330 if you want 76 hr. standby) and has 27 hour standby. Pitiful.

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11444)	6/12/1998 2:36:00 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero, And mentioning "5%" in the W-CDMA context can't be deemed reasonable by any observer. I mean, the standard is developed* by Nokia and Ericsson. Should they then get each a 10% cut?* What did Ericsson and Nokia actually develop? Isn't it more like Qualcomm invented the wheel and the Nordic companies said that the standard for wheels in Europe will be 1 meter in diameter, and all others will be banned? Joe

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (11444)	6/12/1998 3:04:00 PM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero: This is getting wearisome. Exactly who is complaining about Qualcomm's high royalties? Almost SIXTY companies have licensed IS-95 from Qualcomm...these were arms-length transactions, many of which were executed prior to the technology even being commercially proven. So, from exactly where does your purported cacophony of royalty rage derive? Even your favoriate Nokia has an IS-95 license and is paying Qualcomm royalties. Was Nokia committing economic hari-kari when it signed up? Are you really so close-minded in your beliefs that you cannot see Ericsson's posturing as a negotiating ploy? I flat-out will not continue this debate until you explain, in a cogent and reasonable fashion, how Qualcomm managed to get all its existing licensees if its royalty demands were so excessive. As for the delayed availability of CDMA handsets, I would point out that the delays have arisen because certain companies, such as Nokia and Motorola, underestimated CDMA's complexity and therefore took much longer (or in the case of MOT failed) to get their proprietary chipset into production. It is precisely these delays which highlight the value of Qualcomm's technological expertise. In contrast to Nokia and Motorola, the Koreans have done quite well with CDMA handsets and both Samsung and LG Electronics have pointed to digital handsets as one of the key exports for Korea during this difficult period. Your comment that Ericsson or Nokia should get 5% for "designing" W-CDMA is similar rubbish. We are not talking about payments to Qualcomm for "conjuring up" the technical specifications for IS-95. We are talking about royalties patents due for perfecting and commercializing fundamentals aspects of direct sequence spread spectrum. You continue to act as those Qualcomm's inventions are neither real or meaningful. Based on your premise, Siemans should just copy Microsoft's Windows 95, called it Euro 95, and ship it with its computers without paying Microsoft. After all, Siemans probably had been working on a similar operating system, so certainly it should be entitled to take Microsoft's property and use it. What total rubbish... And for the name of God, please explain the logic behind this gem, and I quote, "I think it's different for a large group of companies to ask for very low IPR fees than for one company to ask for high sums." Exactly how does this compute? If one company can provide a single source solution for a technological problem for say a 5% royalty, how is this inferior to five companies solving the same technological problem piecemeal and collecting aggregate royalties of 5% (or more)? The new entrant is still out 5%, but in the latter case he has to negotiate with five different companies instead of one? Your perspective is that of a Socialist dividing the spoils equally among all classes. Beyond that, your point simply makes no economic sense. Tero...you try to make W-CDMA out to be something other than a bastardized version of cdmaOne without offering one shred of evidence to support your position. You deferred on the chip rate issue; you never addressed the fact that Ericsson is promulgating a "world standard" in W-CDMA that could not even be deployed in what is today the world's largest cellular market (i.e. the United States) because the spectrum is not available. You have systematically refused to address specific technical issues because, in the final analysis, you are simply proffering an argumentative opinion. Now I have no problems with strong opinions, but darn-it, occasionally you need to pony up a few facts or, at a minimum, acknowledge what is undeniable (such as the laundry list of IS-95 licensees. As for the chronic "weight" problem of Qualcomm's phones, it would seem that American consumers disagree since the company cannot meet demand for the QCP product family. You have also engaged in an apples-to-fig newton comparison, since the QCP family are dual-mode devices supporting both digital and analog networks. The U.S. digital wireless infrastructure is still being built out, and while this remains a reality, American consumers prefer dual mode phones (and, unfortunately, suffer the battery life degradation imposed by analog). This is not a permanent state of affairs, and you certainly cannot blame Qualcomm for meeting consumer needs. Nokia is shipping its 2180 CDMA phone in the States (and paying QC those confiscatory royalties that you keep alluding to). The phone suffered from software flaws at launch (i.e. it kept dropping calls), but has steadily improved. Despite the performance improvements, carriers such as Airtouch and GTE indicate that the Qualcomm family handily outsells it. Guess the Qualcomm brand is not as weak as you imagine. Gregg