Chaz,
Since I follow Qualcomm and PSION as best I can, I was particularly taken with your point that Citrix's working with PSION is of considerable importance. I agree since I see PSION as the most likely winner in the web browser sweepstakes (but far from a slam dunk of course).
Could you expand a bit on your understanding of that relationship please and its future potential?
I am glad you are following PSION because it is a company I need to get more information about. A key assumption that I am making is that the PSION relationship will help Citrix get its technology into Symbian. Do you know what is the nature of the relationship between PSION and Symbian? I know that PSION provided the original OS technology. However, I have heard that PSION continues to have development responsibilities for the Symbian OS and I have also heard that Symbian has its own OS development team. Do you know which is true? This information is critical in accessing the odds of Citrix's ICA technology to appear in cell phones.
Psion is right in the middle of the battle for the next embedded OS. Through Symbian, they are partnered with every major cell phone manufacturer. With the advent of 3G wireless, the cell phone OS will take on a brand new life / role. You can see the impact of this type of technology in Japan already. Cell phone users in Japan use their phones for all sorts of tasks. I think one will see similar things happening here. Having Citrix on the phones makes sense since there are certain types of applications that cannot be properly run via HTML.
Additionally, the Psion makes hardware. While Palm is getting a lot of attention, it isn't clear that they can provide a real general purpose OS. I think the Psion / Symbian relationship can also apply to delivering wireless services elsewhere. For example, Psion could use Symbian technology to deliver wireless technology into cars. The biggest competitors in this area will be Microsoft with Windows CE, Linux, and Wind. Of all of these, only Psion will be able to deliver a production proven real-time wireless-enables OS. In these scenarios, Citrix can once again be very useful. Imagine having a small LCD in the back of the seat that allows the kids to watch movies on long-trips. Citrix's new VideoFrame can protentially support that and I see no one else being close to providing this kind of technology.
Granted, all this is speculative. However, this is the future that is going to let Citrix grow explosively. As I stated before, I have been incredibly impressed with the managements ability to find new markets for their products way before anyone else sees the opportunities. I believe they are once again doing the same thing in another bowling alley (to use a G&K term).
Heeren |
