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


To: John Biddle who wrote (23973)3/10/1999 3:53:00 AM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 152472
 
*Why care about Ericy?* Yes John, I don't get it either. People seem to be under the impression that Ericy has something huge to offer Q! Ericy is the one likely to gain the main advantage from an agreement. Q! should be driving a VERY hard bargain. Silly journalists say Irwin is obstinate. What do they expect? I found the car dealer obstinate too and explained that they and the policeman were being obstinate and that they should compromise by letting me have the car for a peppercorn rental. No, they remained obdurate, requiring full payment or I should immediately get out of the car and hand over the keys.

Here is all I see:

Ericy can cave on the Texas case and save Q! some legal fees.
$20m value.

Ericy can cave on the Texas case and save Q! from the remote possibility [5%] that an OJ judgement would go against Q!
$500m value [5% of market capitalisation]

Ericy can pay Q! some license fees [upfront plus royalty] for use of Q! technology on similar terms to recent licensees.
$1bn value [upfront license fees]
$500m extra royalties net present value.

Ericy can offer some small political support for a 3G standard to be agreed along the lines of Q! demands.
$500m value.

Ericy can use their existing capital investments to produce Q! technology [instead of that capital being destroyed through lack of business] which will enhance the total sales of Q! technology.
$100m value.

Total boost to Q! from an Ericy cave-in = $2.6 bn

BUT look what Ericy gains!!!!

Ericy saves $30m legal fees [they have a rotten case so need more lawyers]

Ericy saves the risk of the unfair competitive practises claims being proven in Texas by Q! and damages being awarded since Q! was delayed 2 years in bringing cdmaOne to market due to Ericy's disinformation campaign. [20% of Q! market cap which includes a double penalty]
Value = $2bn

Ericy gets into the CDMA market paying Q! $2bn in royalties [$1.5bn of which is paid by Ericy instead of other licensees who would otherwise get the business]. At 5% royalties [an absurdly low estimate - should be 15% or 20%] that would be $40bn in sales by Ericy over 10 years. On $40bn sales, Ericy would make perhaps 10% on the bottom line.
Value = $4bn

Capital not destroyed = offices, redundancy payments, production lines, loss of associated business and generally a real shambles if they are excluded from the 3G CDMA market. If Q! ignores ITU and simply goes ahead with cdma2000 and no standard is agreed leaving competition to sort things out.
Value = $2bn

Ericy gains $8bn from a deal. So Q! is given Ericy a disproportionate advantage by agreeing to cancel the court case and selling them a licence. So it seems there should be much more weighting than I have given towards Q! rather than Ericy.

Ericy has simply GOT to get into CDMA! Q! can remain relatively indifferent to whether Ericy is in the industry or not. I'm sure many of Ericy competitors would be happy that Ericy be excluded!

VERY rough figures, but I'm sure Q! has put better numbers on the various factors and have VERY good reason for being obdurate.

I'm sure a worthwhile deal with Ericy can be struck. I've never yet met a customer whose money wasn't worth taking. Sometimes COD was needed, but all customers I ever met were good customers. Some just a little more tricky than others. Some emitting slime. Some pleasant and worth giving a good deal to as they made life easy and profitable.

Sorry about the rants Ramsey - I'm probably just a bit overexcited to see Q! having some value recognized at last.

Mqurice

PS: Thanks to all for the nice comments on $80 - well, sheep shots in some instances.



To: John Biddle who wrote (23973)3/10/1999 8:42:00 AM
From: Clarksterh  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 152472
 
John - Surely they don't have any interest in selling GSM phones, and they can't even make money in CDMA infrastructure where they know the subtleties better than others; how could they possibly compete head to head with the big boys of GSM infrastructure?

In the shareholder meeting Dr. J said that although he did not forsee Qualcomm ever making purely GSM phones, he could see the utility of making 'world phones' (i.e. multimode phones).

But in the end I agree that Ericsson probably has significantly more need for Qualcomm assets than vise versa. Hopefully Qualcomm doesn't cave under the pressure and settle for dual chip rates or something else that will render cheap upgrades from CDMAOne to wideband-3g-CDMA impossible.

Clark