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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Valueman who wrote (5443)	3/7/1999 3:00:00 PM
From: Valueman	Respond to of 10852

For all the big fish/little fish conspiracy folks out there(that includes me), I have been meaning to post this piece out of Via Satellite magazine. Great article by James Careless: Which brings us to the bottom line of acquisitions and mergers: Will the big companies continue to gobble the small fish up[hey! that's my line], until only a handful of multinational satellite conglomerates remain? Not likely.That's because new small companies keep appearing, as new opportunities such as Internet access arise in the marketplace. Now as these new companies grow stronger, they too will likely start to devour their weaker competitors, growing still bigger in the process. As Loral's Schwartz says, "The continuation of consolidation is inevitable." However, don't expect the mega-companies of tomorrow to resemble those of today, Schwartz warns. Instead, he foresees industries such as satellite, telephone, cable, and the Internet melding together, so that in the future consolidation "will be both horizontal and vertical." "It's a pretty exciting time to be in the business," Schwartz adds."I think there's going to be a lot of changes in the next 10 to 15 years, but the most important thing is that I believe we really have the wind at our back, because as applications and technology drive usage, these industries are going to be rather explosive." To me, that series of quotes says it all. Loral will not be an independent company in the coming years.

To: Valueman who wrote (5443)	3/7/1999 3:02:00 PM
From: Drew Williams	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

Probably this discussion belongs on the GSTRF thread rather than here, but I believe the GlobalStar partners will promote The GlobalStar Network connection because it is in THEIR best interests to do so. Saying The GlobalStar Network will be a shorthand way of saying "It will work anywhere, transparently, whether on cellular (whatever flavor) or satellite." The other part of this is that there are a lot of cellular "providers" that do not have their own network, that resell access to other providers networks. Where are these guys going to end up? As resellers, they are not locked in, and we want their business, too. My wife's company, for instance, bought cellular service through Frontier, which resells Bell Atlantic access at much lower rates than we could get directly from Bell Atlantic. Next week Frontier could decide that all future customers would get sold Comcast's local cellular. (Comcast and Bell Atlantic have compatible AMPS systems with incompatible digital systems (TDMA and CDMA, respectively).) I want both of them promoting GlobalStar services, regardless of what it is called. In a related question, Sprint has recently announced they have contracted with Iridium. Is this exclusive? Does it mean Sprint will be denying their customers access to any other satellite system, specifically GlobalStar?