To: Joe Brown who wrote (2752 ) 2/4/1999 2:14:00 AM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29987
*Winners and Losers* Not so fast there Jack. I'm one to see a winner and a loser. These two companies are by and large trying to get the same customers. For every customer that one gets, the other misses out. Maybe I've spent too long in competitive, customer oriented, win-or-lose marketing and technical jobs, but that's the way this looks to me. Just in case you think to stop reading now, I hasten to add my appreciation to you for your posts, information, sensible and reasonable approach, valuable direct handset experience, thoughts and all that stuff. Please continue. I don't even agree with myself for many years or even days at a time, so I'm happy to disagree with others. Sometimes we all have to tolerate what we find to be unreasonable, inaccurate and sometimes personally derogatory posts [fortunately few in most of SI], but it's worth it to maintain the valuable aspects of a somewhat rambunctious and less than fastidious discussion and multiple sources of information. I too don't want to lose you - or nearly any of the other posters. In fact, in 3 years using SI, there are almost none who I consider simply obnoxious types with nothing but trouble on their minds. Some do need 'civilizing' such as the Tero, who admitted he made an ungraceful entry in mid 1996 to the original Qualcomm SI discussion. He is now one of our excellent 'alumni'. A 'columnist' with a Web 'brand' no less! I see you are already persuaded to stay. Good. Anyway, back to why Globalstar is great and Rah! Rah! Rah! whereas Iridium is not. LarryL is right that I exaggerated his initial comments that business people who see the benefits won't be sensitve to the price of the service - they'll simply want the best service. I exaggerated because it seemed a very dangerous marketing assumption. It seemed to me to carry an attitude that business people have big heaps of money and they don't care about price. We are now in the 'proof of the pudding' for Iridium. Because of handset production problems, with queues for handsets, it's too early to have any idea [from my point of view anyway] as to the success of the price-indifferent well-off businessman strategy. I wouldn't go so far as to say Iridium is lousy. Especially when it is the only success in town! But technological advantage can be very short-lived and can be fatal when it is lost to a new technology. Analog cellular is still HUGE, but all know it is on its way out. GSM is growing madly, but all know that 3G will be CDMA based and GSM will dwindle and die. Same for Iridium. They were first, they should be profitable, but one day, they'll be buried by the newer and better technology. Which at the moment is Globalstar. But Globalstar Constellation 1 design has too much altitude, too few satellites, too little bandwidth and data rate to be a long run success. Because Globalstar has the exclusive rights to QUALCOMM's CDMA technology for space systems, it seems to me that they will be able to profit from Constellation 1, beating Iridium on minute price, voice quality, battery life, data handling, handset size and price, and therefore able to fund Constellation 2 which can be backward compatible to Constellation 1, but introducing some better features. With a low Constellation 2 altitude, handsets will be more effective, calls more robust, batteries lasting better, WWeb access available etc. Iridium is a technological dead-end with a high-priced minute cost leaving Globalstar able to undercut them while offering near enough to the same service or at least service good enough for nearly everyone, which is what counts. Later Globalstar constellations could be polar as well as the old 70 North to 70 South coverage. They could even go to satellite switching to give better oceanic coverage. So I see a winner and a loser. Which is, to emphasize it, not to say that Iridium won't make big heaps of money. If Iridium fails that is no predictor that Globalstar will do so too. If there is huge market demand for Iridium, that guarantees wild success for Globalstar. If demand for Iridium is pitiful, it doesn't mean demand for Globalstar will be pitiful. So, Rah! Rah! Rah! for Globalstar. Winners and Losers. Yes, I like to be associated with winners - I don't want their autographs or company, I do want to buy their stock. I like to BE the winner even more than being associated with them! I am the: Maurice Winner... [Hope you don't think me rude - but I feel the need to express my contrary opinion!]