Captain, I never understood your apprehensions about the number of Palm shares COMS shareholders will get. To me the fact that we will get 80+% of the shares is all I need to know.
The real question is what capitalization will the market bestow on Palm? It's a company with a revenue run rate at the time of the IPO of $1 Billion a year, a record of growth of around 100% a year for the last three years, an operating system that will probably dominate the mobile device space (a probability that was significantly enhanced by the Nokia licensing pact and the MSFT ruling), a wireless internet service that is growing in lockstep with Palm VII sales (which seem to be doing very well), with a 77% market share of the PDA hardware market.
So what valuation do you put on the $1 Billion (that's billion with a B) annual revenues of Palm, its 100% growth rate, and its positioning right in the center of the wireless revolution? That's the key question.
Perhaps we get a hint from Aether's valuation (symbol AETH), which as of Friday had a $1.8 Billion (that's billion with a B) capitalization. It went IPO a few days ago, is owned 13% by COMS, has revenue of $2 million (that's million with an M), and its main claim to fame is OpenSky, a JOINT VENTURE with 3Com that will enable Palm V access to the internet. |
