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

To: marginmike who wrote (18131)	11/10/1998 5:31:00 PM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

MM - The price for the new Star Tac is $499. Where did you find that? I looked at a variety of Startac phones and the cheapest was $800. If it is indeed being retailed for only $500 then I will worry some. But it is too soon to worry too much. There are still a bunch of issues that I would want to see answered before I would get seriously worried: 1) What are the providers paying for the Q phone vs the Startac. I suspect it is substantially more for the latter, and thus direct price competition is unsustainable in the long term. (I found a third party retailer selling both Q's and non-CDMA Startac's. The latter were 60 to 160% higher priced.) 2) I suspect that it will be another quarter or two before Motorola works out all of the bugs in their phones. Remember that both Qualcomm and Nokia had software problems for the first several quarters, and if I had to bet on Motorola, with their track record, avoiding these problems I would pass. By the time they get something working to the market I would bet that the competitive situation is different. As for my being biased - yea, a little. Clark PS I am not trying to discourage you from debating things like this since it can be informative, but I would humbly suggest that it is too soon to get to seriously worried about this. PPS Another argument in favor of keeping the handset business. It was probably a strong factor in getting the JV going.