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Jim,I like your thoughts.As usual your common sense,makes a lot of sense.I have been reading about the Blackberry case and IMO,it is very positive for IDCC.My partneris under the weather so I am using her Dell. Bushhog.
Sorry, thats Bushhog,not balivet.
Nice letter Ronnie. I might add, how can you show your face outside of KOP much less make another Inst.road show.Thanks for nothing.Now I am going to have a martini and hope we all have a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Oops!!! The last balivet message was from me, bushhog... It's nice to be able to post again... :)
Jai,could you or somone provide me with the link for Tom Carpenters report. I am now retired from many,many years as an investment advisor and just returned from some great fishing in Alaska and Idaho. Thanks.
OT: Have either of you ever heard of my home town, Danville???
balivet
OT: Jimlur is out of town until Wednesday...
Bri... I agree... Clear Station bar has been red for too many weeks... Now we're set... :)
teecee and Jimlur... You two get the gold stars today... Nice to see you working in sync...
OT: TO ALL... Am looking into software for active trading... Would appreciate any input...
Thank you, Balivet
teecee... I know someone who's stomach stopped roiling when the news came out... :)
Norfolk... a suspension of coverage usually means that the
analyst has left the firm. Usually they pick up coverage when they
resurface
with a new one. That has happened before.
There is a lot of insider dumping of QCOM.
Norfolk... Suspension of coverage usually means that the
analyst has left the firm. Usually they pick up coverage when they resurface with a new one. That has happened before.
Could someone please post the CC number???
TIA, balivet
OT: Once again, how do I get rid of the annoying IDCC intro???
Thanks, and Happy New Year to all...
Art,this is Bushog still snowed in and I want to tell you that was an awesome post, thanks.
Blue, this is Bushog snowed in. I agree but how about initiating coverage with a sell rating? That is really pathetic IMO.
OT: Thanks Jim... Got it and printing for bushhog...
Great post Ghors... When is NOKIA due to file their response???
My husband and I both pray for a speedy recovery for Carol... I will give a a special prayer for her at RELee on Sunday...
Blessings... Doug and Jean
OT: New internet worm spreading...
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/12/windows.worm/index.html
AMEN!!!
OT: habu, rtd and chartex... bushhog says that you've got a deal if, and only if, Jim is his partner... Jim's the BEST bar tender!!!
Happy 4th to all!!!
balivet and bushhog
Apparently IBD has given Interdigital an "A" rating... Could anyone who is a subscriber to the hard copy or investors.com
post a site??? TIA
Newriver... I think the Count's summation of the insider selling discussions was a fresh and very balanced post... Gifting options as a lure to new and old executives has been under well-deserved scrutiny in the last two years, but when the incentive is properly exercised, I see no problem with it... As for IDCC, the percentage being sold relative to total ownership is small, so I don't think there should be any concern...
Happy Father's Day!!! [If applicable... :)]
Count... AMEN!!! Thank you...
Jim... You have asked this board several times to drop the options issue, and yet the obsessive debates carry on... YES/NO votes for options have been beaten to death!!! I, for one, will be elated when the vote has been tallied at the ASM and this board can move on and the personal slandering will cease...
Re: CC... Could you please post the phone #...
Thanks...
DoCoMo Is Back, Leading Japan's Cellphone Market
By KEN BELSON
OKYO, May 6 — After enduring staggering losses on its international alliances and a halfhearted introduction of the world's first "third-generation" digital mobile phone service, NTT DoCoMo and its president, Keiji Tachikawa, can finally breath a bit easier.
NTT DoCoMo, which is due to report earnings on Thursday for the fiscal year ended March 31, has now written off the bulk of its overseas losses, released a flock of new products and finished building most of its new mobile phone network, known as FOMA. After a bruising two years, Mr. Tachikawa has steered DoCoMo back to where it was at its peak: the dominant cellphone company in Japan, with the most coveted phones and plenty of cash.
DoCoMo was buoyed by the warm reception consumers gave to its new line of mobile phone handsets in March, lining up in front of shops to buy them on the first day they were available. The new handsets, which can take and send 24-second video clips, are as sleek and stylish as older phones and, importantly, cost about the same.
The new phones helped DoCoMo reach its scaled-back target of enrolling 320,000 users for the FOMA service by the close of the fiscal year, and they gave Mr. Tachikawa hope that he can raise the figure to a million customers by March 2004.
"This year, we will return to the trajectory we expected when we first launched FOMA" in October 2001, Mr. Tachikawa said in a recent interview.
Even without FOMA, DoCoMo will probably report 1 trillion yen ($8.4 billion) in operating income and 182 billion yen in net income on Thursday, analysts said, even though revenue fell about 9 percent. In the previous fiscal year, the company racked up $10 billion in losses on its stakes in KPN Mobile, AT&T Wireless and other overseas companies.
Investors have been heartened by DoCoMo's apparently having found ways to expand profits even as revenues fall. They have bid the company's stock up by about 30 percent since mid-March. And with most of the FOMA network already built, analysts like Mark Berman at Credit Suisse First Boston expect DoCoMo to be able to triple its profits this year.
"DoCoMo had those losses overseas that stayed with them like a cancer," Mr. Berman said. "But having written them off, DoCoMo should go forward with a clean record."
DoCoMo, like its rivals, still faces a host of challenges. One is saturation: More than 60 percent of all Japanese people already have cellular phones, so new customers are harder to find, and they tend to be people who spend the least — the young and the elderly. With the economy sluggish, existing consumers tend to hang on to their old handsets longer. And DoCoMo's efforts to interest Europeans in its proprietary i-mode technology have yielded only modest results.
Still, these challenges pale beside the immense write-offs the company absorbed last year. And DoCoMo seems to be recapturing some of the momentum and buzz it lost to rivals last year.
For example, J-Phone was the first to offer phones with small built-in cameras, but DoCoMo has far outpaced J-Phone since June 2002, selling more than 10 million camera-equipped phones. Some 60 percent of DoCoMo's handset sales now come from the camera phones, whose users also tend to spend more on data transmission fees to swap photos with friends and relatives.
The popularity of DoCoMo's phones is helping it begin to close the gap with KDDI's third-generation network. Based on a cheaper, slower technology, KDDI's system has signed up more than seven million users for its service since April 2002, but the momentum is shifting toward FOMA.
"If everyone is going to be using FOMA phones eventually, it's better to change now," said Akihiko Ono, a 29-year-old businessman, who bought a new DoCoMo handset last week. "I like new things, and I like things that other people don't have."
To attract more customers like Mr. Ono, DoCoMo is cutting prices. The company is also lowering fees to encourage more use. And it is investing 42 billion yen ($354 million) this year to help manufacturers like NEC, Panasonic and Sharp develop new FOMA handsets and sell them at fairly low prices.
The trouble, Mr. Tachikawa said, is that Japanese people already spend an average of about 5 percent of household income, or $200 a month, on telecommunications costs. In a sour economic environment, they are unlikely to spend much more.
So DoCoMo is trying to develop phones that can generate other income, including some with chips inside that can be used to make purchases at vending machines, train stations and convenience stores charged to the monthly phone bill. DoCoMo would earn a processing fee on each purchase.
Mr. Tachikawa hopes the new income will offset another worrying trend: consumers who are willing to wait until prices fall before they switch handsets. After living through five years of deflation, most Japanese look for sales and markdowns before they buy.
"People have become much more price sensitive in Japan," Mr. Tachikawa said. "Consumers can be divided between those who are keen on new features and those who want cheaper phones, even if the technology is a year old."
TC... Bush hog says that he hopes you're so right... He's looking forward to your cocktail party...
balivet
p.s. He just returned with a couple of nice rainbows caught in a mountain stream...
Norfolk... 29.5 on 6/4... Hope I'm WAY too low...
balivet
ClearStation's turning green again... :)
http://clearstation.etrade.com/cgi-bin/details?Symbol=idcc&Refer=http://clearstation.etrade.com/...
Thanks Jim... Happy to see that the SEC is doing its job, and that the filing is, in fact, a non-event...
and I'll send him a bottle of Svedka... :)
OT: Alley... ditto to Dumpter's post...
OT: Al set... tnx
OT:
When I open up the IHUB site, Jim's introductory statement about IDCC is taking up half the screen... The same thing happened when I joined...
TIA
OT: How come Jim's intro is opening up again???
tnx, balivet
OT: Loop... Thanks for returning... We would hate to lose the sympatico and historical savvy of one of the very few who have been through IMM's agony and ecstacy for 18 years as we have...
balivet and bushhog