Seems to me the commercials will have positive impact on GMGC, assuming they show a GMGC product, and there is some reason for people not actively following the company to realize the secret ingredient is GMGC.
Again and again, I read press releases talking about Onstar, which have little or no mention of GMGC. I don't know what is really planned for this alliance, do you? Is it Portico from a built in car phone? Is Portico, or whatever a standard feature of OnStar, or an added feature?
Dave's got a point, Portico, or MyTalk are available now, and you don't have to be in a car to use it.
So, can they tie GPS, web browsing, and mobile agents into some wiz bang jaw-dropping product? Again, why only put it in a car? They sure haven't come up with any amazing improvements in Portico in a while, and if they have their brilliant PR department is doing its usual job of keeping it a secret. I would have thought there would be more mention of this product at the CES show in Las Vegas, or the car show in Detroit.
What I really see happening here on this thread is a lot of people following every nuance about GMGC, but failing to discuss all the competitive product offerings popping up like mushrooms. As much as I got to dislike "ynot", he presented some very interesting questions, which lead me into Phone.com and the whole WAP movement before it became hot last year. It was very profitable and exactly why I spend so much time on Silicon Investor.
The entire WAP development is so huge it's breath taking. So, we've gotten bored with GMGC and mobile phones now because people will use a graphic WAP product. Yes?, Portico is a dead product, but in the car they need a computer that can read and take instructions so they can be hands free. Well, these cars are going to be doing TTS, and they are going to have WAP computers showing things like videos from the freeway cameras. They will give you turn-by-turn instructions for routing. ETC. ETC. ETC.
By the way, all the demos of IVR in cars at the Consumer Electronics Show failed because the computer couldn't handle voice input in a noisy environment.
I can also present great glowing ideas about why GMGC could do well, but there is really enough of that already published. I like nothing better than to share dialog and have people tear down my arguments. I want my stock in this company to go up. I am not a short seller.
When you all look at this quarter's earnings report, what do you think they can say to sustain this share price? Will it be revenue related? Will it be related to a new product announcement? Will it be a market trial going to market? Will the Gm deal be presented in a way we can all assign a price tag to its value? I really wonder what they'll be able to say to fuel this story?
I know revenues and profits are not making stocks rise. A good story is worth a great PE any day. Question is will this car story be enough? Think back to the 11 Telco trials for Portico. That was a killer statement of acceptance. That was going to be a done deal where we would have 100's of thousands of users all paying at least $20 a month. It was enough to make you crazy with excitement, and then.... nothing. The first quarter that should have been really big and they had something like $180,000. I remember saying with all their staff, they could have made more money as a cleaning crew. It was terrible.
I think this stock is trading up for one reason only, speculation of a take-over. I think the purchase of @Motion by Phone.com is the reason. I would love to see an Infospace, or some other company come along and by this company. I would love to see AOL marry Mapquest with their PIM solutions and GMGC. But, standing alone, Portico is not a good enough product, judging by market acceptance, to maintain this company. If it was, those 11 Telco trials and the Wireless Knowledge story we were reminded of would have resulted in a power house of a company pumping through cash flow like we had all hoped instead of this pathetic little company missing half it's management selling us shareholders to the wolves so they can make it from quarter to quarter.
Gloomily yours,
Mark
PS I think I got a few run on sentences in there. |
