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


To: Timothy R. Tierney who wrote (4854)5/22/1999 9:54:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29987
 
Tim, I asked: <You are happy therefore that the Service Providers aren't ordering handsets and this is consistent with the claims? RMiethe has ordered one. If it's good enough for him, why not for the Service Providers?>

Your answer was true enough, and management performing is definitely proven in many Harvard studies to be a significant if not main part of their job. But that begs the questions I asked.

If you are a shareholder, you have a job too. Your job is to investigate whether management is doing a good job. Then vote, buy or sell your conclusion. A shareholder who does a bad job will find themselves out of a job and that negatively impacts their funds flow [they lose their money!].

So, what do you think the answer to the questions is? If it is "I don't care, and I'm not going to investigate any apparent problems" then that's a valid point of view but you better spread your shareholding over the index rather than a few companies. Then again, maybe you simply trust a particular management and are happy with blind trust. That's fine too, if it works. Some of us, as Ronald Raygun said, "Trust, but verify". With this management, I'd say trust is a reasonable option, but how come the phone orders aren't pouring in?

I say there is a conflict in the information ["We can sell it at $1.50, but we won't order many handsets"]. You choose to ignore that as a mystery of life which will disappear under the thrust of trustworthy management. Maybe it will. Some of us would like to see a LOT more handsets ordered and sold.

But check out this statement, which to me reads like an extract from the failed Iridium plan. It is directed at Globalstar.

From RocketScientist post 4853:

< But truly, I'm convinced that the key early adapters of G* phones will be the same as for fax machines...large organisations: corporate, government, military and law enforcement, etc. For these customers, price per minute is not the issue, especially if it's clear that they only pay the satellite charge when there's no other practical choice. If I was G* marketeers, at least in N. America, I would concentrate nearly all my efforts on vertical users; not only will they get more phones sold, IMO, but the ultimate users will be relatively, often completely, insensitive to the cost per minute. For large orgs, the phones will be purchased in bulk by some bureaucrat in Information Systems, or the like, and distributed to the high value assets (physical or human) that need to stay in touch wherever they are. Once distributed, the human being that dials the phone many times will have no idea or care what the call costs.

For these users, reliability, customer service, call quality, and unit hardware cost will count more than the per minute charge, IMO, especially if they can do a competitive procurement and show their boss that G* is 20% cheaper than IRID, for example.

Only after the vertical markets are well seeded with phones, would I worry much about retail consumers....if G* has any minutes left that is...it's possible most retail consumers will be forgotten until Gen2.
>

He goes on to point out some problems which Globalstar will need to answer for these customers. But the statement is SO similar to Iridium's failed plan it makes me very nervous. 20% discount on Iridium prices isn't going to do it.

Maurice

PS: These are early adopters, not adapters.