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

To: Valueman who wrote (18282)	11/12/1998 10:48:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

All, John Major on Cavuto Tonite 8Pm Pacific> Some excerpts; Wirelessknowledge CEO - Interview FDCH CEO Wire/Associated Press THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. NEIL CAVUTO, ANCHOR, CAVUTO BUSINESS REPORT: Qualcomm (Company: [ Qualcomm Incorporated ] ; Ticker: QCOM; URL: http:www.qualcomm.com) and [ Microsoft ] (Company: Microsoft Corporation ; Ticker: MSFT ; URL: microsoft.com are now pairing up to make your cell phone as important to you as your PC. They have tapped John Major to head Wirelessknowledge their new joint venture which plans to begin offering wireless data delivery as early as next year. And Mr. Major tells me the Wirelessknowledge business plan is on track for success. JOHN MAJOR, CEO, WIRELESSKNOWLEDGE: We're going to start trials in the first quarter of next year. We demonstrated live yesterday to our audience and it was thankfully so seamless that many thought we'd simulated it. CAVUTO: The customers who you've hooked on right now is pretty much a Who's Who in the wireless arena. Is this more a bow for Qualcomm or for Microsoft. It seems populated by Qualcomm executives or former executives, yourself included. MAJOR: Well we have a strong contingent of Qualcomm executives but frankly both companies are confident enough about their space that they think they can be successful if we just grow the general -- the general market for mobile computing. CAVUTO: So this general market for mobile computing. I mean I keep hearing all this kind of -- no offense sir, but this pie-in-the-sky kind of talk that we're eventually going to be able to do everything via -- let's say a wireless phone. How soon really? MAJOR: Well actually what we showed yesterday was calendar changes and updates to your directory using your wireless phone, and not just a CDMA wireless phone, we showed one phone on a CDPD system. CAVUTO: What is a CDPD system? MAJOR: CDPD is a nationwide data system that the phone companies rolled out some years ago. CAVUTO: OK. MAJOR: And we showed both of those working and we showed them working with the new -- what they call Jupiter series net computers, and then working with standard laptops as well as two-way paging on a Bell South (Company: Bell South Corporation; Ticker: BLC; URL:http://www.bellsouth.com/) system. So it's real now at least in the lab, at an alpha level. And we hope to bring it to trials working with -- and thank you for commenting we really did have a blue-ribbon panel of wireless service providers yesterday. CAVUTO: But these wireless service providers, of course they're all, you know, clawing and scratching their way against each other. Who's to say that one doesn't try to steal part of this technology, someone else try to steal another part of it. MAJOR: Well that's a little bit like saying that maybe somebody's going to try to monopolize the Internet. These are all players that have significant experience, and they know they need the underlying technology to deliver the benefits that their customers want. CAVUTO: But do they need...? MAJOR: So they're willing to fund that. CAVUTO: I'm sorry sir, but do they need Microsoft's Windows CE technology for these miniature devices? That's what's debatable. MAJOR: Well -- but the answer is absolutely not, in fact that's why you may be aware Qualcomm released a product recently based on the Palm OS, and the two-way pager that we showed yesterday is based on what I call the RIM OS. CAVUTO: By I can't imagine if Microsoft's involved in this with you that ultimately it will endorse its final system that will be -- you know, palm oriented, and not Windows CE oriented. MAJOR: It's incorrect to think that. Frankly, we spent a lot of time with Microsoft in the early negotiations. We want -- we were developing a system that's agnostic to the type of wireless signaling, and a system that's agnostic to the type of wireless signalling. And a system that's agnostic to the type of OS. And then in that space the Qualcomm people feel that CDMA will win, and in that space the Microsoft people think that Windows CE will win. But what we do is we make the pie and then it's up to the various alternative solution providers to compete in that space. CAVUTO: This ongoing trial Microsoft's going through right now, what if ultimately Microsoft is slapped down, has to breakup some part of its company. Or, at the very least is sort of humbled into new endeavors like this. Are you worried? MAJOR: Frankly I'm not even following it. It's not my area. It doesn't start or end with either Microsoft or a Qualcomm, what we're trying to provide is connectivity and synchronization to the diverse computing devices that business people and frankly -- people in general use today. END (Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 1998 Fox News Network, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 1998 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc., which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, Inc.'s and Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.) Publication Date: November 12, 1998 Powered by NewsReal's IndustryWatch ...back to top