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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Brown who wrote (3034)	2/20/1999 2:06:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

No gloating It isn't fun to see people really crash and burn and so far Iridium and Globalstar are behaving much the same in stock price. Gloating is for victories where there is an air of fun about it on both sides. Like winning a mile race by 10 metres, instead of the best challenger being run over by a truck. Capital destruction is not fun and nothing to gloat about. There is a huge amount of it, mostly by governments, but any is bad. I seriously hope Iridium is a lot better than the trend of this conversation and I don't believe we've got enough evidence [though the people selling the handsets should have by now] to conclude that Iridium is a failure. Sure I enjoy to be vindicated - I get enough flak and have to put up with some significant denigration for holding views opposite to the majority. Practise lends a thick hide. Being right also helps financially, which lends an air of happiness. There is something about the stockmarket which says that if you are in the crowd you are usually in an indifferent investment at best and a potential disaster at worst. Which is not to say that being alone is necessarily good - dangerously wrong people are alone too. Somehow one needs to know the difference. I think I'll wait and see just how many handsets are selling before I conclude it's really bad. I'm still sticking with my original position that there never was enough business for everyone, nor would everyone be rich nor would Iridium and Globalstar do equally well. Globalstar can sell minutes at 20c and make heaps of profit. Farmers in the sticks of Australia where there is no cellular service will buy them just to phone the house and ask if the scones are ready yet. Texan ranchers will love them. People love to talk tough about how they don't care about money, but when you pull it out of their wallets they squeal more truthfully. They love Ferrari, Porche, Lexus and buy a regular Ford or Toyota. Sure, Lexus makes money and Lexus might be pleased to put Iridium handsets onboard but even Lexus doesn't have that much in the way of neat gadgets in the cars and people mostly have their own phone and the lifecycle of an Iridium phone is too far out of synchronisation with the life cycle of a Lexus which lasts maybe 10 years. The phone system would need to be replaced several times. So people will have to fit their phone preference to Lexus [for now anyway]. Why aren't the Iridium handsets selling? Where is the feedback from sales people? Exactly how many are selling per week? Are the calls really as good for everyone else as you experienced? Existing ocean going boats will already have their radio communications so Iridium will need to sell an extra layer of technology. Maybe they haven't hired salespeople and prospective customers haven't seen the handsets and tried them out. This is a puzzle. I better do some local research. My ideal is Iridium makes 15% return on the first constellation, cancels the rest and Globalstar hits the sweet spot, making a fortune then goes on to Constellations 2, 3, and four all within 10 years. I'd really be gloating then! Maurice