SiRF Technologies (SIRF) jumped almost 30% last week after they clobbered Wall Street expectations. The conference call was vastly entertaining, because the predominant emotion was disbelief. Half of these people couldn't spell GPS two years ago, and they have no idea how big this is going to be.

First, the numbers. SIRF reported $91.2 million in sales and 29 cents a share pro forma, far above expectations for $85.7 million and 22 cents a share. The company cited strength in System on a Chip (SoC) sales incorporating technology from the Centrality acquisition, where they booked $8.8 million versus their guidance for about $5 million. They also had good sales in automobile GPS devices like GM's OnStar system. The company suggested that wireless revenues in the cellular handset and other markets could double or triple next year, and wireless was 20% of September-quarter revenues. All of Wall Street's estimates for 2008 are much too low.

The next wave of GPS devices will be as a feature of other products like cell phones, and today SIRF has very little competition in the SoC market. Qualcomm (QCOM) has products for the CDMA market, and I'm sure Broadcom (BRCM) and STMicro (STM) will get into this area in 2008. But SIRF is well ahead of the curve, and it takes a long time for a cellular service provider to quality test and approve a new handset design.

Some new applications inline from SiRF include 3-D GPS, which gives you a screen presentation that looks like you are driving through a city rather than crawling over a street map. Others include area information like nearby restaurants and movies, with ratings, coupons and so on. Some have mobile digital TV -- recall that SIRF bought a mobile TV receiver company in 2006.

These products sound super cool, and I love that SiRF is far ahead of the GPS competition.