Internet Appliances are cheap and easy to use devices that let you connect to the Internet without using a computer.
I think in January 2000, we will see an explosive increase in market and investor awareness of these products. I say that because:
They got a lot of attention at Comdex last November: businessweek.com
Netpliance will be an exhibitor at the International CES this week: cesweb.org
Netpliance says they have bought three ads in the Super Bowl: (http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2381277,00.html)
Netpliance has filed to raise $100,000,000 in an IPO that is expected to happen in Q1 2000.
The IPO should bring a lot of attention to companies that work with or compete with Netpliance. Those companies include:
BND - The only publicly owned competitor that I know of is BND, which has a market cap of $37 million, compared to what should be at least $300 - $500 million for Netpliance.
GO - Netpliance S1 says that GO.com will be the exclusive provider of content for 5 major categories on the I-opener portal.
SPYG - According to a ZDNet article, the browser used by Netpliance is from Spyglass: zdnet.com
NSM: National Semi makes the chip used by Netpliance.
Quanta (of Taiwan ? I think it might trade on the Taiwan exchange) does the manufacturing for Netpliance
The operating System used by Netpliance is from QNX Software (not publicly traded, unless it?s on a Canadian exchange), while other companies are using BEOS and WIND.
Here are reference pages for some companies and products involved in Internet Appliances:
i-opener by Netpliance ... netpliance.net
iPhone by Infogear ... infogear.com
and distributed by Big Planet ... bigplanet.com
i-Brow by Boundless Technology (BND) ... boundless.com
Qubit ... qubit.net
GlobalPC by MyTurn.com (MYTN), not on market, yet and looks like cheap PC based on Geoworks ... globalpc.com |
