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: marginmike who wrote (23356)	2/24/1999 12:16:00 PM
From: Ramus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Standard on digital wireless due soon Jacobs hopeful it will suit Qualcomm By Bruce V. Bigelow STAFF WRITER February 24, 1999 In unusually upbeat comments, Qualcomm Chairman Irwin Jacobs says the fractious wireless industry is nearing agreement on a new standard for digital wireless communications that is compatible with Qualcomm's CDMA technology. Jacobs' outbreak of optimism came yesterday during the company's annual shareholders' meeting at Qualcomm's San Diego headquarters. "We are reaching a point where I am beginning to feel quite confident -- not 100 percent, of course, but quite confident -- that we'll be able to achieve a standard that we feel comfortable with," Jacobs said. The founding chairman and chief executive also hinted that Qualcomm has been negotiating with arch-rival Ericsson AB across a broad range of strategic, legal and technical issues vital to both companies. Qualcomm and Ericsson are longtime bitter foes. But analysts say fundamental economic forces are driving them to agree on a wireless digital standard for the future -- the so-called 3G or third-generation system -- allowing both technologies to operate. "Frankly, I think they're going to cut a deal," said Bob Egan, a telecommunications analyst for the Gartner Group. "I don't know what the timing will be. But I think it's good for Ericsson, and I think it's good for Qualcomm." In response to a shareholder's question, Jacobs said he had "nothing to report" concerning pre-trial negotiations under way to settle a patent infringement suit filed in 1996 by Ericsson against Qualcomm. But Jacobs suggested that Qualcomm could work with a partner which specializes in Global Systems Monitoring, or GSM, a rival cellular technology dominant in Europe. Sweden-based Ericsson, the world's third-largest maker of wireless telephones, holds numerous GSM patents and is a major player in the European market. Jacobs maintained that Qualcomm has not focused on asserting its patent claims for CDMA, a type of digital wireless technology whose name stands for code division multiple access. "The main thing we've focused on is ensuring that certain markets be open," Jacobs said. The best way to ensure openness, he added, is to ensure that the marketplace can select the best technology from all available options. After years of battling rivals and critics over the merits of Qualcomm's CDMA technology, Jacobs said his optimism was due to the changing tenor of recent talks among industry officials. He was especially heartened by a meeting of American and European telecommunications executives held last week in Washington. Those talks ended with a resolution broadly supporting a third-generation standard for CDMA-based wireless communications that "converges" Qualcomm's cdma2000 technology with W-CDMA technology supported by Ericsson. The resolution marked a departure from previous statements issued by the European Technical Standards Institute and certain European companies, said the CDMA Development Group, a nonprofit trade association. "This is the first step in resolving the current 3G impasse," said Perry LaForge, the group's executive director. "We finally have everyone supporting convergence and stressing the need for commonality among the modes of the standard." The meeting in Washington, held under the auspices of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue, was part of a broader international effort to work out a global 3G standard. A U.N. agency, the International Telecommunications Union, is expected to draw up a single global standard for 3G wireless communications by Dec. 31. Until recent developments hinted of a broader agreement, Qualcomm was advocating the adoption of its cdma2000 as the preferred standard. Ericsson was pushing its Wideband CDMA, which is incompatible with Qualcomm's system. Jacobs outlined the international negotiations over a new CDMA standard while presenting an overview of the company's 1998 operations. Although many technical details must still be resolved, Jacobs told more than 250 shareholders, "The main thing from our point of view is that it does allow a single standard to be adopted." Copyright 1999 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.