Several points possibly relevant to Digital River:
There have been other hardware security systems available for some time to the mainframe and server market. They are all very expensive and I would assume that if Digital River has hardware components among its product line then they would probably fit in this category. From what I understand, the OEMs' current interest in the WaveMeter revolves around its ability to provide a variety of solutions for security, distribution, metering, transaction data, etc. - all for the cost of $2 to $3 at volume production. Just a thought, but maybe the business-based OEM's may be interested in seeing more cost-competitive functions on the PC as opposed to the server environment. Needless to say, higher cost components from DR and others would be prohibitively expensive for the consumer market which is a major focus of Wave's.
To follow-up on IBM. I believe they do have some kind of commitment to install WaveMeters on PCs over the next year, however there is a penalty for non-performance which, while big to Wave, would be very small potatoes to IBM with over $75 Billion of sales. In other words, IBM could drop the ball but I feel that would be highly unlikely considering 1) the time they've devoted so far, 2) the support of e-commerce from Lou Gerstner and 3) the long-term potential to IBM of this technology. Furthermore, other OEMs are very interested and could ultimately provide plenty of motivation. |
