You are referring, of course, to the BAT acquisition.
I've posted my thoughts on this before. BAT uses a relatively expensive, high-end approach in its F3 technology. It wasn't commercially viable against the commodity pricing established by IDT. Fowler recognized that Oracle sales were going nowhere, IDT had a deal with Compaq (actually, he tried to buy them before the CPQ deal, but they wouldn't sell yet), and he switched. Meanwhile, it looks like the BAT stuff is being used in airport access applications. If that's true, it more than pays for and justifies the acquisition.
I don't know where you get the idea that Fowler can personally create a market. Look at what is going on right now with wireless banking, where we see a market shaping up: Bank of America is piloting IDX biometrics in a smart card form; Motorola is committing to technology creation for wireless biometrics; B of A is going to pilot new wireless banking software from a Toronto startup. The infrastructure is coming together, but clearly Fowler can't control all these players. |
