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To: Jon Koplik who wrote (13248)8/3/1998 1:50:00 PM
From: tero kuittinen  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 152472
 
Jon, I suspect the consumers care. They care a lot. And the last time I looked, mobile phone business was still consumer-driven. Even if CDMA turns out to be more economical than GSM, what are the CDMA operators going to do if the consumers clearly show a preference for GSM? Yell at them? ATT runs a TDMA business, and it runs it well. Witness the great call pricing plan and the use of Nokia 6100 line-up as the core of its new ad attack. They can well afford somewhat higher operating costs if they get healthy subscriber growth in return. The handset prices are now close to each other because the market place has forced this. I suspect Qualcomm planned to price their phones a lot higher. They tried the 500 dollar Q-phone angle and it didn't excatly set the Main Street on fire. Their new Q-model will meet the new 5100, which will probably be priced below 6100. Which is already dirt cheap. Go ahead and laugh at Bermuda Blue... but at your own risk.

Dave, I'll be brutally honest (but just this once). There's not much any investor can do about the tarantula. It's there. It's there for both Qualcomm and Nokia. Nobody knows how this IPR thing will turn out. But Japan is the player that has the most to lose, they just sunk 200 million dollars in the new W-CDMA research center - and that's just the building. Overall Japanese investment in W-CDMA is flirting with billion dollars already. They are the motor behind all this, Nokia was forced to speed up their W-CDMA project by the combined clout of Japanese government/NTT-Docomo when they insisted on launching 3G already in the year 2000. I think they will find a way to sort this out; this is the one aspect of investing in Nokia that I just have to leave up to faith. If and when W-CDMA starts, Nokia has a big lead over competing companies developing this technology. Yes, even Qualcomm. They did not develop the W-CDMA specs and the first operators outside of Japan buying W-CDMA will be Nokia's long time GSM customers.

Tero



To: Jon Koplik who wrote (13248)8/3/1998 11:48:00 PM
From: Jon Koplik  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 152472
 
To all - O.T. - More "whiney" "I'm not as impressed with Warren Buffett as the rest of the world" thoughts.

I just read three different commentaries on today's (U.S.) bond market action (where prices were up fairly nicely). Not one of the three (A.P., Economeister, or Bridge) (Bridge's URL is

news.bridge.com

in case anyone is interested) mentioned that it was revealed today that Berkshire Hathaway has sold ALL of their (U.S. Treasury) zero coupon bond holdings.

I just want to get it "on the record" that : first of all, W.B. totally missed the huge move in the U.S. bond market in 1995. And, when someone asks "If I am so smart, did I catch that move?" ... the answer is YES.

Secondly, BRK.A is now totally exiting the bond market, and (I assume) maintaining their massive exposure to stocks. (I know there would be big capital gains considerations on the stocks, but, I am a believer in NOT letting taxes affect major economic decisions).

But, my main point is, I would have thought that anyone writing up a story on today's bond market action would have said that prices rose partly on the news that market fears about potential bond sales by a huge owner of zero coupon Treasuries were alleviated on reports that the bonds had already been sold.

(Also, in case it is not obvious, I do not think the bull market in U.S. bonds is over (or, even close to over) right now).

Jon.