rajsekar

Qualcomm: A Promising Leader in Mobile Internet

Hello San Diego QCOM Watcher: Your wireless technology knowledge is impressive but a layman like me doesn't care about the nuts and bolts of what each protocol accomplishes. World wide everyone knows about two wireless technologies that are currently prevalent - CDMA (CDMA2000, CDMA 1x, EV-DO) and TDMA (GSM/GPRS, UMTS/ HSDPA, EDGE) similar to PAL and NTSC signal transmission formats. It is also a known fact that QCOM holds majority of CDMA patents. The proof of the pudding is that TDMA is a dominant technology worldwide that most countries have adopted, whatever be the reason behind it. The question is whether QCOM's OFDM gamble will pay-off in the long run. The third candidate here is WiMax which is still nascent and its effect is not felt by consumers. Intel has put all its might behind WiMax and may even succeed. How did CDMA thrive all along? My conclusion is that it's a bit early to throw any weight behind QCOM now.

Qualcomm: A Promising Leader in Mobile Internet

After parsing San Diego QCOM's comments, I am pretty confident that you are either Jacob's or QCOM top employee. This is quite amusing, because just few weeks ago I unmasked TiVo founder in Seeking Alpha who had responded to TiVo's recent patent ruling against Echostar. His writing was so technical and resembled a company's standard press release. Best of Luck to San Diego QCOM in selling QCOM stock to Seeking Alpha readers. QCOM may well become another Apple with a deep moat around them and running a closed ship. If CDMA has to compete with GSM, then hefty royalties tied to CDMA will have to go. Maybe Jacob and Steve Job can share some ideas on how to run a closed company.

Qualcomm: A Promising Leader in Mobile Internet

Brewer - Hey I thought Steve Jobs hired you to sell more iPhones in India and China. Poor Steve, iPhone is a complete flop in India and will be soon in China. Oops, I forgot iPhone launch in S.Korea also - Good luck. Why don't you start writing your own column - I bet you will fail miserably.

Stock Doc- QCOM's bulk revenue comes from selling CDMA processors combined with IP portfolio of CDMA technology. As everyone knows, CDMA is not as widely adopted as GSM in high growth countries like China and India. The Jacobs (father and son) have so far milked all hand set makers with their excessive CDMA royalty, but failed to push innovation within Qualcomm. The Jacobs' excesses led to hefty settlements with Broadcom and S.Korean Trade Commission. All hand set vendors have clearly drifted towards GSM because worldwide adoption of this technology is quite smooth w/o big royalties. Now QCOM's release of its own MediaFLO handset is a big gamble. How many users are going to shell out $250 to buy a dedicated mobile TV handset just to watch television? Jacobs' have got this idea completely reversed. Unfortunately MediaFLO may die prematurely, because of Jacobs' greed. The BREW platform may succeed, but we are now seeing big mobile OS battles between Windows, Android, PalmOS and Symbian, besides MacOS. Can BREW make inroads here? I am not confident. Jacobs can continue to milk Verizon until CDMA is used in US for few more years. The rest of the world would have moved to 4G using GSM technology. Steve Jobs is very clever not to fall for Jacob's arm twisting CDMA contracts and Apple may never release an iPhone on Verizon. iPhone may eventually be a GSM only device.

Report: Apple Projects Lowering Its FQ2 iPhone Shipments

Strategy Analytics in their report on 2007 mobile hand set numbers noted that global mobile handset growth will slow down in 2008. The worst hit models will be the premium category which comprises of iPhone. In a recession year in US, it will be tough for consumers to spend $300 on an iPhone and get locked down with a lousy service provider like AT&T. Apple can barely scratch their 10 million target if the price of iPhone is reduced below $150 and alternate carriers are allowed. Steve Jobs knew after one month of iPhone launch that 10 million target was pretty foolish. Look at the global handset numbers for 2007 from Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sony and RIM - these vendors have phones starting from $50 going upto $1000 and they can sell 25 million in a single quarter. Moreover these vendors sell phones all over the globe. The expected hype in UK for iPhone has been bad and the numbers are also below target. Let's wait and watch for 10 millionth iPhone delivery.