Am I blind? syntax error: `(' unexpected

[guitarscn]

So I am trying to convert my bash script into ksh, and this is what I have in the file so far:

#!/bin/ksh

login()
{
        if [ "$ALPHA" = "" ]
        then
sendcmd BETA
else
sendcmd "$(xxd -c 32 -g 0 ${ZETA_ZETA} | awk '{print $2}')"
        fi
}

But when I run it:

$ ./test.sh  
./test.sh[3]: syntax error: `(' unexpected

Am I not seeing something here? I closed all of my () and I don't see any open parentheses...