Interview - Tony LaPine....
"Tony LaPine of Datalink.net has seen it all. His no nonsense candor is refreshingly Unstrung. The
developer of the disk drive and CEO of a leading wireless ASP takes on the Unstrung Hero."
This is the way Unstrung describes their Interview with Tony LaPine today. There were some interesting parts of this interview...but IMO, this interview showed me how poorly the wireless area is understood by the general public. IMO, it looks like Unstrung didn't do their "homework" before the interview, and that Tony LaPine was getting frustrated by some of the ridiculous, and irrelevant questions!
Libbyt
"Straight Shooter
by: Unstrung Staff
Tony LaPine: The genesis of Tony LaPine: I started out of college as
an engineer out of IBM. In the early 60's I was part of a team that
developed a gadget called the disk drive.
Unstrung: Now what is that, the disk drive?
TL: Is this guy for real? What are you 29? 31? I have patents that are older than you.
UH: Wow!
TL: Then I left to found Memorex in '69 and was there until we sold it to Unisys.
Then I launched the first 3 1/2 inch disk drive company in the United States in '83,
sold it in 87, made some money, had some fun and went to Russia, was an advisor to
Gorbachev--
UH: How'd you swing that?
TL: The Hoover Institute is heavily involved in Russian affairs. I taught as a professor
at the university, sat on a bunch of boards--anything but work.
UH: Right on.
TL: Datalink.net was initially a board participation on my
part. I was involved as an investor. One thing led to the next
and I found myself running the company in '96.
UH: Sort of like the Norelco shaver guy?
TL: This company was founded in '93. This company has
been around twice as long as Aether is old.
UH: The company started as a paging company.
TL: No.
UH: So….
TL: The company started delivering stock quotes to pagers.
It started as a wireless data company. One if their first
customer was TD Waterhouse in Toronto and they were
delivering stock quotes.
UH: How have you found the transition from where you
started to the hype of today?
TL: It's a completely different company.
UH: Has the hype affected your vision at all?
TL: Well, we actually existed and were doing many of the
things people are excited about today very early. Sometimes
you can be too early. We were there very early. Because we
were so early, we were confused as a pager company.
Today if you look at a lot of these data companies, like
Aether or 2Roam, nobody mistakes them for a paging
company even though they might be delivering information to
a pager. But back in '96 when you show people information
on a pager, then people said "okay, you're a pager
company." That's somewhat like when the cell phone guys
got into the business, if somebody said, " Are you guys in
HAM radio?"
UH: You're working on the consumer side and the business side. Which will
see the most attention going forward?
TL: We've got a legacy business on the consumer side that we have de-emphasized.
We're now primarily a B-to-B company. That's what our deal with Chase is about.
We think Amazon and these e-tailers have demonstrated the problem with doing
B-to-C. You can't spend $1000 to get $500 worth of business. It will be a long time
before you build a profitable business. Most of the guys doing B-to-C are essentially
giving it away.
UH: When you go to the corporations, what are they looking for most often?
TL: There are two sides: One is the employee side. Sales force automation. The
other is transactions, like buying and selling stock--mobile commerce. B-to-B-to-C.
The other being B-to-B-to-E. One improves productivity. One improves revenue.
One is top of the line. One is below the line. Our acquisition of Cross Communication
is an example of B-to-Be. They have over 150 clients--everybody from Lucent to
HP. We acquired them as a further move in that direction. We'll be announcing some
other acquisitions in the medical markets. Lots of acquisitions in the next 90 days.
UH: What about what GiantBear and SmartRay and OracleMobile are doing.
You're sort of similar to them. How do you plan to differentiate yourself?
TL: Most of them are focused--OracleMobile is focused on providing people with a
platform. We provide people with solutions.
UH: And Giant Bear and SmartRay?
TL: The product we did with Chase was a co-developed product that was uniquely
directed at the vertical market. It's a wireless ASP, unlike Oracle. They want to sell
you the software. We don't want to do that. Oracle is not a Wireless ASP. What was
the name of those other two companies? I've never heard of them.
UH: They're New York based start-ups.
TL: You have to differentiate between people who are doing wireless portals. That
ain't us. There are a lot of people doing that. There's this idea that if you create a
website and I give you stock quotes and give the ability to get information, it's going to
make money, and we think that's bullshit.
UH: Will the 3G auctions affect you?
TL: Well, I just had an interview earlier. I'm always
surprised at how confused people are about what we do
and what space we're in. People ask how Bluetooth will
affect you. Bluetooth has nothing whatsoever to do with us.
Oh really? Gosh, well it's not clear from their website,
people say. All Bluetooth is is an infrared room-to-room
interconnectivity. As far as the frequencies. We're protocol
independent, device independent, carrier independent. We
don't care. The more the merrier.
We are a wireless ASP. Do wireless ASP's have anything
to do with the frequencies involved? No.
Do wireless ASP's have anything to do with the carrier's
involved? No.
Do wireless ASP's have anything to do with the devices
involved? No.
Wireless ASP's are device agnostic.
Do we deliver to all the carriers? Yes we do.
Who owns the customer? That's a bullshit question. The
customer is owned by whoever is delivering information to
the customer.
We're delivering services. A customer can be owned by 5
vendors.
Does the website you go to own you?
This is without a doubt the most confused space I've ever
seen in my forty years in technology.
UH: Makes my job easier. Thanks for chatting with
us.
TL: Well, it's fun. What do you do?
UH: We're an online magazine.
TL: Oh. What do you focus on?
UH: The wireless space.
TL: God help you."
Compiled by the Unstrung Staff.
unstrung.com |
