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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (756)	7/15/1998 1:03:00 PM
From: Rob Lyman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

tero, Very interesting posts. Can you or someone else on the thread point me somewhere to better understand this GSM versus CDMA issue? Sounds like GSM has won the "world-wide" battle, but want to understand further...

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (756)	7/16/1998 12:48:00 AM
From: Wafa SHIHABI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Excellent post Tero. I have a question for you, or anyone else who can answer. iDEN is more of a niche wireless system whose forty is in group talk and fleet communication. It also has phone interconnectivity which puts it in the one-on-one business. Does GSM have the capability of fleet communication and broadcast features? where do you see iDEN going in this race?

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (756)	7/16/1998 2:51:00 AM
From: Alex S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Tero, I am an intruder from the QCOM thread so you know where I am coming from. It was indeed an excellent post, but you make some factual and logical mistakes, in my opinion. First, you compare QCOM in the late 90s to Nokia in the early 90s and you expect QCOM stock to perform in a similar way. That is not a fair comparison, Tero. Ericsson for years was trying to convince everybody that CDMA was not going to work in the market place. So QCOM not only had to prove that its technology is commercially viable as an alternative to other wireless technologies, but it also had to fight a deliberate misinformation campaign ( remember Bill Frezza?). Nokia, on the other hand, did not have to fight technology battles against anybody, it did not have to fight a misinformation campaign and it also had your Government on its side. Given all the odds QCOM has done tremendously well. In other words, this your expectation that all companies in the world have to perform equally at the same stage of their development regardless from market conditions cannot be serious. Now, I am not going to challenge you on all your numbers that you have thrown into your post. You are deliberately very selective in all the statistics you provide. Somehow you do not mention that Mexico in the last month with its ninety million people went 100% cdmaOne. You forget to mention that Japan is replacing their domestically developed cellular system with another digital technology. And for some reason it is not GSM; guess what it is. Yesterday they launched a nation-wide cdmaOne network and they will have 100% coverage in a year from now. Now, be intellectually honest, and post a simple answer to the following simple questions: how is GSM doing in Japan, anyway? Who is providing GSM service there and if nobody, then who is planning to provide it in a foreseeable future? Is there any GSM trial system in Japan? Well, there is a cdmaOne trial system in China... I could go on and on about your selectivity. But I am more interested at this point in your logic. You keep bringing up these numbers about how GSM phones are better than CDMA phones. But, Tero, if the reason for this is because GSM is technologically superior to cdmaOne, then why for Heaven's sake did NOKIA and ERICSSON choose CDMA as the basis for 3rd generation standard? Won't they be bogged by the same problems? If, on the other hand, you believe that it is not CDMA problem but rather poor design quality by QCOM, Sony, Samsung etc., then your logic suffers when you are trying to explain that the world is not adopting CDMA because GSM is technologically "better". I also strongly disagree with your argument that just because CDMA was coming into the market few years later than GSM, it should not have been coming at all. I am not sure how to respond to this. This argument by extension can apply to any innovation. Your logic suffers here as well, Tero. Yes, USA, has a fragmented market and it is painful. But you have to explain to me why do you think that GSM does have rights to exist and CDMA does not. I strongly believe that eventually from this current market fragmentation something good will come out. The fact that North America has experience in developing, deploying and operating CDMA networks will be a huge advantage in the future. You mention that QCOM Q phone flopped. Yes, it did. But, Tero, you know very well what "flopped" there. It was not electronics or any particular piece of QCOM design. Because plastics supplier delivered then out of spec the phone case sometimes was cracking. As to your question when a new model will be available I think we will know it very soon from the next week conference call. I strongly suspect that it is already being shipped to service providers and they must be conducting some field tests. Tero, I think that Nokia is an excellent company. I also think that your QCOM bashing is way off base. You may eventually convince me that QCOM is not worth a dime but you would have to come up with better logic. Frankly, I do not think you would be able to, not because you do not have intellectual ability, (quite to the contrary, I do enjoy you stimulating posts) but because facts are really stacked against you. Given the circumstances though, I think you are putting a good fight, but, alas, you are loosing it, Tero. Cheers... Alex

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (756)	7/16/1998 9:43:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Tero, you really are in the hotseat! Lucky for you, it is from a very safe position in Nokia, so you are well-armed. But here is some comment on that: Message 5222762 Meanwhile, I'll just try to cover the bits others haven't already from your comments. Nokia sure has done well. You haven't seen rapid profit growth by Qualcomm because it is only this year that they have really got going. Until now, all income was going on R&D. Omnitracs and equity provided the money. All used up on getting cdmaOne chips to work. Check out Qualcomm's revenue growth - you will see something spectacular there. It is only this year that they really got selling the stuff they've been trying to get going since 1986 = CDMA. There is not really a disadvantage in entering the digital phone market half a decade after GSM. In some ways it makes things easier - since everyone is used to and wants cellphones. Just step up and offer the better gadget and they'll be buying. GSM is a European standard in the sense that Europe is GSM only. I don't think anyone means only European companies can supply equipment or that it is only used in Europe. How will cdmaOne attack entrenched competition in China? Easy - same as anything else. You talk to the customer and offer them a better deal. They say "Okay, thanks". Simple. There are cdmaOne systems built in China now with more going in. In Australia, Telestra was reported as replacing their GSM. Yes, Optus might try to offer GSM competition. Not much chance of success though. All they can really do is milk their cow until it gets too old and hopeless. You can bet NZ will have cdmaOne next year. I disagree with those who disparage battery life and phone size and weight as being unimportant. I agree with you - we are a kaleidoscope of customers. To me, battery life is vital. Even if people put it on the charger every night, that doesn't help them if they go away for a week and stay in a log cabin. And small is good. For most people. Especially women and children. Some people like big, waterproof, brute phones which float. Tero, I agree that Nokia GSM handsets are great. But you still have to buy the GSM service too. Subscribers want an overall good deal. The best will be a Nokia handset, designed to the quality of the GSM ones, but using cdmaOne and maybe a Qualcomm ASIC if Nokia can't keep up. You pointed out that Nokia has good funding from their sales to develop more handsets. Don't forget that every cdmaOne handset Nokia sells gives funding to Qualcomm and that is good for more development by Qualcomm. You make a good case that there really is a marketing race on and GSM has the lead in handsets. But with the albatross of GSM hanging on these excellent handsets, the long run seems to me to be full of cdmaOne. How quick the change will be will depend in part on how quick Nokia is to increase it's market share in cdmaOne handsets. No skin off Nokia's nose if cmdaOne takes over and Motorola and Ericsson don't have a handset in sight. No skin off Qualcomm's nose if Nokia wipes the Samsung, Sony and 23 other cdmaOne handset licensees - they [me] still get the royalties and infrastructure sales. You know, 4m Finns and 4m Kiwis have a bit in common! Maurice