Some Random Comments
(1) Someone will do a voice portal very soon, a VIP if you will, "voice internet provider" - email, voicemail, internet all dressed and combed for voice access. The GMGC NOC with Portico could easily have grown into that.
(2) GMGC may have become more of a service company than a technology company. Portico was a vertically integrated service under the GMGC brand that included a significant capital outlay for the NOC. GMGC in its earlier days was a technology company providing the platform for others to build on - Sony and Motorola in the Magic Cap days.
(3) This voice sector is in for a wild time. As much as I am down on GMGC for execution, talent, and financial resources, I have to admit that anything can happen.
(4) The GM deal saved GMGC, but they better mine it for all it's worth as far as getting them in elsewhere because they never will get more than about 4% - 7% of Onstar revenues.
(5) Could Markman be planning to spin off MyTalk.com with a backdoor IPO? The www.myTalk.com looks curiously like a small separate company with little mention of General Magic.
(6) I looked at FONX when it was at $0.24 just three weeks ago (now $1.10) and passed because of the horrible financial mess. They are in Salt Lake which has a large pool of technical talent (home of old Wordperfect and Novell). The two top guys are not technical, but the underlying company seemed very technical. (They had a messy, out-of-date website the last time I looked.)
(7) The key is for people to get a "real number." (Those with tech backgrounds know the math meaning for that.) A "real number" connects you to an information machine, not just to dial tone. YOUR PORTICO NUMBER IS YOUR REAL NUMBER and should be the one in the phone directory! I liked this idea so much that I added realnumber.net to the twenty .com's that I own. (Realnumber.com was gone.) |
