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

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (13738)	8/14/1998 11:31:00 AM
From: Clarksterh	Respond to of 152472

Jon - In case any of the rest of us ever want to dig up similar data, how did you get it? Gotta love the web. What used to take days now takes hours. Clark

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (13738)	8/14/1998 11:45:00 AM
From: Drew Williams	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

While reading the 50+ posts since I last signed on yesterday afternoon (this is the most garrulous group of people on SI, as far as I can see <g>) I started wondering about this takeover thing. First, in the case of G, they would have to get LOR, Soros, and Sid Bass, because those three combined own more than 51% of the company. Smaller positions might bring influence through forced appointments to the board of directors, but not necessarily. So, who owns Qualcomm besides us? How many really big chunks are there? Is the situation like G where they would really only have to convince three people? (not that it would be easy to convince Bernie!) Or is it much more diffuse? Second, let's assume some evil empire company from the land of the midnight sun actually bought QCOM. What would they do with it? Could they immediately and unilaterally declare W-CDMA the winner with no upgrade path for existing CDMAone license holders other than completely starting over? I don't think so. They would have to provide an upgrade path for existing CDMAone license holders. There is probably language in the license agreements about access to future development, for one. But more importantly, if they cut Sprint etc off without a paddle, who would ever buy anything from these guys ever again? I'm sorry, sirs, your multi-billion dollar investment is gone, but we have this new incompatible model for only another multi-billion dollar investment. Won't happen. There are also other small issues involved, like the reaction of San Diego and other regional politicians when they find out one of their largest San Diego's local employers is moving to someplace they cannot even find on their map of California. Mqurice is correct when he says the US is quite protectionist, so I suspect there would be some government interference in any such takeover attempt. So, while the takeover cost might indeed be less than the expected royalties they might have to pay, they would also have to keep running the company more or less as has been done. This still leaves them with the same CDMAone vs W-CDMA conflict, except now it would be internal. This would be untenable, so I do not think it will happen. In other words, I do not think QCOM is a legitimate takeover target for ERICY. Lucent or Nokia could do it, but I do not think so, because that would seriously and negatively impact their existing and substantial GSM business. Who would buy a GSM system from them after they became the primary proponent of CDMA? Much brouhaha, and I'm probably missing something really obvious, but it is almost noon here and I still haven't had my first cup of caffeine. (Also sweating out job offer doubling income, so haven't slept much.) Hey, it is almost the weekend!