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

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (1013)	9/27/1998 4:38:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Tero, This Nokian turkey, William Plummer, vice president of government and industry affairs at Nokia Inc. (Washington), said that --------------------------------------------------------------- Congress was fooling itself if members think global standards revolve around decisions made in the United States. Qualcomm got a fair hearing in several concepts proposed for ETSI, he said, but raised new issues late in the game, after ETSI had picked NTT's version of wideband CDMA. All companies making proposals to ETSI, ITU and the Japanese ARIB radio board have intellectual-property rights they can wield, Plummer said, and Qualcomm will find that opting for confrontation will lead to hostile consequences globally. ---------------------------------------------------------------- He is fooling himself if he thinks that global standards don't revolve around decisions made in the United States. Is he some refugee from some Russian steppe still in Neanderthal clothes? If Nokia is depending on people with such a limited understanding of world affairs, they are not likely to have long lasting success. He actually sounds like a Pommy Bastard [a fond antipodean idiomatic description of English people who think the British Empire is still at its height]. Which might be worse than a Russian refugee. He is wrong on the importance of Congressional decisions, especially now that Clinton and Congress are looking avidly for ways to rescue themselves from their mutually destructive obsession with Monica's moments. Nothing like a common enemy to stabilize internal politics. He is also wrong because Qualcomm decisions are made in the USA. San Diego to whit. These decisions affect global wireless standards. He is wrong about "a fair hearing" in SETI. I'm sure you are capable of understanding the deficiencies in some allegedly democratic processes. I'm happy to spell these out for you if you like. Is he insane, ignorant, stupid or obtuse? Possibly simply drunk in charge of a mouth. Maybe all together. He is wrong about all companies having intellectual property rights they can wield. He might be right in that all of them have intellectual property rights, but it is surprising that he doesn't seem to understand that all intellectual property rights are not created equal. Maybe Nokia has some IPR in GSM systems or how to connect a battery to a chip, but that is not quite the same as owning core patents in soft handoff, rake receivers, power control, PureVoice and the like, essential for effective CDMA operation in mobile phones. He is wrong saying 'Qualcomm opting for confrontation will lead to hostile global consequences'. Where has he spent his life? Nokia seems generally to be well aware that competition is inherently hostile. Nokia is successful in competition. He must be some refugee from a Pommy bureaucratic atomic energy commission and has never had to earn a living in the real world. Whether Qualcomm likes it or not, they are in a competitive, hostile, confrontational high speed industry. Whatever action they take will not alter that. Nokia has been doing extremely well. With luck, they will hire more people like William Plummer and thereby enhance Qualcomm's chances of beating them. Do you not fear for Nokia when you see such egregious thoughts from a Nokian Vice President? Nokia has been doing a brilliant job in GSM handsets and I gather in GSM infrastructure too. So far they are not doing very well in cdmaOne. By the way, I agree the Q-Phone dual mode, 20 hours standby is hardly a thrilling advance in the cellular world. Qualcomm better keep moving really fast. Nokia's handsets are great. A shame they only work on GSM - and lucky for Qualcomm that they do. Then again, if they do become as successful in cdmaOne handsets, Qualcomm can close their handset production and live on royalties. I'd be happy with that - as long as they reduce staff accordingly. Become an R&D company only. Maurice