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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (20530)	12/29/1998 6:11:00 PM
From: Gregg Powers	Respond to of 152472

Maurice: Having danced this dance for oh so many years, it does get tiresome listening to the same pontificatory yet unsubstantiated rhetoric repeated endlessly. Today I asked Tero a very straightforward question, the answer to which is central to almost every assertion he has made about W-CDMA. Today I asked Tero to delineate in a straightforward fashion the precise technical differences between cdma2000 and W-CDMA. Before shouting from every electronic hilltop in electronic creation that W-CDMA is the end-all, get-all, solution to GSM's air-interface obsolescence problem, you would think that an honorable, intelligent or otherwise fastidious commentator would understand the particulars between the two standards. Without such insight, one cannot begin to evaluate when Qualcomm's IPR is involved or even whether W-CDMA is a viable commercial technology. Alas, once again Tero deferred and resorted to nonsensical and vitriolic commentary directed at the poor Q-phone's unfitness to serve. During the hyperbole, however, an interesting concession did pop out. To paraphrase our wayward friend, "I am not an engineer, but I talked to some engineering types one in a while." I remember meeting with Andy Viterbi, who I might add is a MIT-educated engineering type, back in early 1996. Having the temerity to note my electrical engineering background, I was soon hopelessly lost as the affable doctor began scribbling complex physics all over the chalkboard. I took copious notes and after two weeks, probably fifty hours of remedial math and about half a dozen e-mails back and forth to Chuck Wheatley, I more or less had some understanding of Andy's point. Take my word for it, this stuff ain't simple. Which brings us back to our non-engineer buddy ole pal Tero. Why do I suspect that his engineering contacts work for a certain Finnish Telecoms company with an agenda somewhat contrary to Qualcomm's? It is quite possible, albeit even probable, that said engineers, as dutiful employees, believe the corporate party line. They may even have attested to working on CDMA for the last seven to nine years. It is, however, unlikely in the extreme that these engineers, presuming perhaps incorrectly that they even exist, offered Tero any more than a cursory observation regarding their beliefs. Had they done so, then our non-engineer buddy ole pal Tero might have had something more tangible to offer then his "because I say so" response. Unfortunately for Tero, if he is wrong on the IPR issue, the entire mosaic of his investment rationale begins to crumble. W-CDMA will not get deployed as configured. GSM will be forced either to remain buried under a TDMA air interface or ultimately migrate to a converged standard the locus of which is our dear San Diegan prodigal child. The bottom line is that Tero really does not have a clue; he admitted as such today and that is why he does not and cannot answer the question. Since he remains clueless, the rest of his arguments are equally specious and therefore the debate is moot. Sadly for Tero, passionate aphorisms are a weak substitute for facts. But then again, we can always talk about standby times..... Happy New Year, Gregg

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (20530)	12/29/1998 11:18:00 PM
From: Gary Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

>Your Teroist methods... Great post Maurice....especially the lamb part! :-) Getting bored watching this thing hang around 51 while the other techs fly. Whatever happened to the "big" announcement? Did all the political arm twisting delay it? Regards, and "still" holding gw

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (20530)	12/30/1998 12:35:00 AM
From: George Gilder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Phil Karn, early spread spectrum guru at Bellcore where he came to depend on the Internet, came to Qualcomm in the late 1980s and began agitating for inclusion of a TCP-IP protocol stack in every cellphone. Klein Gilhousen and Irving Jacobs were persuaded in 1991. Qualcomm CDMA thus is uniquely adapted to the net, as will become obvious with the introduction of the pdQ Palm-phone next year. I predict it will become the most popular PC on the market.