Open War For non-PC Platforms: Phone.com, GeoWorks, Palm?
By: Steve Harmon, e-harmon.com
3/28/00 7:24:24 AM
Microsoft won the desktop platform war. No clear winners have emerged yet in the nonPC platform battles. One firm could walk away with the standard for devices. That firm could be the next Microsoft.
Who? Yesterday?s $2.5 billion bid by OpenTV for Spyglass (SPYG), one of e-harmon zero gravity?s 10 for 2000 picks, was a move in this direction.
Just last week we wrote that a natural buyer was Phone.com (PHCM) which could have owned Spyglass for 10% of its own market cap. Phone.com could still bid on SPYG if it has the hotline connection. Doubtful that Phone.com has the gumption.
With SPYG going to OpenTV then what?s next in our opinion?
Palm?s successful IPO and strong market cap north of $30 billion in the handheld device arena make it a perfect hunter for smaller fish such as Phone.com (PHCM) or even guppies like GeoWorks (GWRX). Let?s check the abacus tweaking:
The Palm platform today boasts about 6 million users and counting. The recent launch of Handspring by the inventors of Palm at 3COM (which owns 94% of PALM shares) extends the Palm franchise into licensed hardware vendors.
This avoids the mistake Apple made by not licensing its software OS to others. The real battle though isn?t among device software it?s hardware platforms in general. We believe that the cell phone may likely become the standard nonPC Web device of choice simply because there are 500 million cell phones globally ? and more and more of them are becoming Web enabled with email, schedules, stock quotes, news.
No matter how many Palm hardware devices get sold it?s difficult to see 500 million being sold before cell phones embrace the Palm functionality. So the best move for Palm looks pre-emptive, acquiring PHCM and extending the platform rather than waiting for cell phones to push Palm out of hand.
The danger for Palm or Phone.com is to sit and do nothing as the TV-centric Web outlets start to acquire nonPC Web platform enablers and protocols. There?s nothing stopping OpenTV from going after GeoWorks next since the acquisition would be small compared to PHCM.
Imagine in the early days of the PC if Apple would have acquired DELL or Compaq to hedge its platform risk with the Apple OS. Palm looks in that position today vs. the cell phone makers/providers.
Which brings up the point that the ultimate buyers perhaps could be Nokia (NOK), Motorola (MOT), or Ericsson (ERICY). Even a PALM may not be immune from one of these large players from phoning in a bid of their own device. |
