Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (19756)	12/15/1998 9:21:00 AM
From: DaveMG	Respond to of 152472

Tero, Wired has a piece this month on your favorite topic... "HOW TO GIVE GOOD CELL PHONE." "We took todays top digital phones for a test drive" MOT V Series GSM 1900: "If Star Tac is Porsche 911, V Series is Boxter...About size of Wrigleys PlenPak (chewing gum). Mot's signature clamshell makes this easy one ear and mouth. GSM and AMPS.500-700$" Nokia 6190: "Nokia offers 3 snappy hues,Ocean Earth and Sky.Hues aside looks like common cell phone, still not every cordless comes with 3 vid games, calender, calculator and currency converter.179$" Philips Trapeze/Accent: "GSM cell phone slips into holder that doubles as PDA. Unfortunately, the combination is not as convenient as it sounds..phone is molded into uncomfortable shape of its caddy..touchscreen on back of cradle is difficult to navigate.449$" QCOM dual mode Q: "The way to go for serious mobile professional.Looks like bulkier Star Tac, so similar that MOT is suing Q. But the combo analog and CDMA digital dialer makes up for its added girth with extra roaming stamina, an internal antenna, and a comfortable shape.299$" Samsung SCH-2000: "At first glance SCH-2000 is unremarkable:slim but not exceptionally small, flip down lid that doesn't quite cover talk button. One truly earcatching feature: Voice dial..179$" Nokia 9000i: "..flips open to reveal miniature keyboard and screen. But as with Trapeze, convenience of two in one is outweighed, literally by sheer bulk. If you need to compute on the go you're better off getting an ultra light laptop with a wireless modem..799$" QCOM pdQ: "Palm Pilot and cellphone in one, forthcoming pdQ is the most viable of the covergent phone-cum PDA devices. While it's a good setup for the mobile exec this isn't the dialer you'd want in your pocket when you hea out to a club, unless you want people to think you're really glad to see them...500-1000$" Ericsson KF 788: "Understated elegance, muted colors, a nub for an antenna, and a flip down lid. The handsome devil is also built to roam, both AMPS and digital D-AMPS..299$" Sony D-Wave Zuma: " PCS phone roughly as big as a pack of cigs. Menus easy to navigate thanks to big jog dial, but the flipdown microphone and extendable antenna are flimsy, alid that covers the touchpad would be nice..199$" Nextel i1000: "takes prize for most resembliong Star Trek communicator though Kirk would never have put up with fragile extendable antenna. Big payoff however comes from Nextels proprietary national dig network, Direct connect feature turnsm your phone into a long range walkie talkie...299$" So there it is. 10 phones. CDMA Star Tac is a glaring omission. Out of these ten however 2 are QCOM phones and 2 have Q ASICs in them, so in a very real sense 40% are QCOM phones. Not bad for the runt of the group wouldn't you say. Not only that but both QCOM phones got best in class reviews. Only thing that worries me is the "forthcoming" element of the pdQ. Tero you're probably going to come up with lots of reasons why these reviewers blew it but hey, everyone is entitled to their own viewpoint. QCOM phones seem to be getting pretty darn good writeups. Hopefully they'll figure out how to get em out into the world in good working order and in sufficient quantity. Anybody use Nextel? How extensive is the network? Dave

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (19756)	12/15/1998 9:59:00 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero - re: Happy Holidays to everyone but Michael. It is only because of this whole uproar about posting your piece without the URL for the source that I am now really interested in looking at that website. Jon.

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (19756)	12/15/1998 10:08:00 AM
From: brian h	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero, Are you now a partner with Bill Frezza? He gave up his column in pursuing of investment management business. Now you seem to pick up his legacy as a columnist by advocating Nokia (as Bill was for Ericy). You seem to pick up all current problem events on ERICY, QCOM, and MOT at the expense of NOKIA's handset business and a tiny successful market share of 1800 mhz GSM infrastructure business (in you word - A "controlled" business which is counted as a small fish among a global (900 + 1800 GSM, TDMA, 800 + 1900 CDMA) infrastructure business. And Nokia seem to do fine to be a small fish in infrastructure business facing up giants such as LU, MOT, ERICY, and NT, etc. Nokia does not have to be the number one in this business just yet? Nokia must make a killing in this infrastructure business also without considering economy of scale? Your statements concentrated so much on NOKIA's handsets business and current events of ERICY, MOT, and ERICY's problems. How about LU? Is that the goal how you measure NOKA up eventually with LU's market value? Or simply LU does not report any problem just yet therefore you do not have anything to offer? Brian H.

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (19756)	12/15/1998 10:26:00 AM
From: J.B.C.	Respond to of 152472

>> even if you use it in public to bludgeon my credibility<< No disrespect Tero, because I do enjoy your posts, but your credibility is your own undoing. I have seen flagrant examples to prove that you really know little about free enterprise businesses. Jim

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (19756)	12/15/1998 10:33:00 AM
From: Gregg Powers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero: I was not attempting to bludgeon your credibility...I feel that, with no sarcasm intended, that you do a fine job of this yourself by continuing to characterize QC's royalty and ASIC strategy as a simple "license" fee story. You are making an economy of scale argument without even addressing the economies that QC has created for itself within its ASIC franchise. You neglect to consider that the ASIC module, for all intents and purposes, IS THE MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL VALUE-ADDED in a wireless handset...which, I might add, is why Nokia and Motorola felt the need to create their own, proprietary chipset (which very mixed results). As closely as you follow Nokia, I am sure that you are aware that the company disclosed recently that is considering a third-party ASIC vendor in order to improve its CDMA handsets' competitiveness. This should tell you something pretty important about the value of the ASIC. Qualcomm is the world's dominant vendor of CDMA ASICs AND it collects a royalty on the wholesale transfer price of the resultant wireless handset. I would argue, and did to you privately, that this is a SUPERIOR position to the standard handset business model because QC's subscriber business, taken in toto to include ASICs and related royalties, is far less product-cycle dependent than its competitors since the overall results derive more from the overall growth of CDMA than the success or failure of a particular handset (QC's included). You need look no further than Ericsson's recent handset performance to corroborate and amplify on this point. Consider that ERICY used to be the leading GSM handset vendor but has lost this position to Nokia...now it must pedal quickly to refresh its product portfolio and attempt to gain marketshare. This is tantamount to a perpetual beauty contest with enormous stakes. In contrast, under QC's CDMA subscriber equipment model, it collects royalties from all handset vendors, regardless of who is currently in the lead and it complements this strategy by providing the marketing leading ASIC module to the same vendors. This strategy may differ from the traditional model that you espouse, but that does not mean that it cannot and does not work. To this end I would point out that Qualcomm reported its most robust financial performance, from an operating income standpoint, in a quarter where you claim that...based on the Dataquest analysis...the the company's marketshare had collapsed. Moreover, you are attempting to link the March/June problems solely to handset issues while neglecting the "minor" business dislocation that occurred in Korea. Your revisionist view of March/June does not change the fact that QC's business is currently very healthy; that QPE is manufacturing to capacity and that margins expanded dramatically in September. It seems when the objective fundamental metrics contrast with your analysis, you simply ignore this data and continue with the dogma. Best regards, Gregg

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (19756)	12/15/1998 3:07:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Tero, Your Xmas spirit of love was wan at best towards Michael, who as Jon has pointed out, has gained you a lot more exposure. Should we simply ignore you and boycott debry? Not being a Yankee See, Yankee Do type, I'm sure you understand the need to be kindly disposed to human foibles and avoid the legalistic, litigious and pedantic approach to his promoting your writings since it was not for personal gain, and it was of great benefit to you. Of course, genuinely malicious stealing of your property should be sternly dealt with and I'm sure the gentleman here could help you. Message 6781896 Subject 24219 Michael's allegedly illegal copying [one must be legally pedantic in these sensitive matters] raises an interesting aspect of IPR. I thought you and your Nokia idol were in favour of intellectual property being for the greater good and that it should not be held by one individual legal entity, even though they created it, to benefit them ahead of others. Nor should the entity that created the property set a price on the use of that property by others. I have recently established a Web Standards Committee and your property was declared publicly useful and in the interests of you not having a monopoly, we may all use your property at will. Do not stand in our way, you selfish, evil person - one greedy person like you cannot expect to stop the progress of an industry, let alone humanity. You are required to forthwith send to us all the articles which you prepare so that we may publish these, under the new Web Standard which we have unilaterally declared. Sorry, but you are not in the club so can't vote on it. Was that you sounding like a 747? Mqurice PS: I have contacted Janet Reno with a view to her bringing an antitrust action against you for abuse of your knowledge and ability monopoly to write those articles and the leveraging of that monopoly into Web advertising which is not your traditional field. While you might argue that others can write similar articles, the fact is that only you have that unique monopoly to put them together in the inimitable Teroist style. See you in court! [Actually, I'm a bit frustrated because I'd noticed no url to debry in Michael's post and I thought I had written a post saying it was a little unfair to not provide a link, and included a debry link in my post. I did comment on your article, but must have got sidetracked part way through. Oh well, just a bit of brain failure.] debry.com There it is again!