what role is WIND playing in all of these markets it is involved in. OK, so DSL modems might be in a tornado, but what part of that modem comes from WIND and how wired in is the modem manufacturer to using WIND, not only in this year's model, but in years to come?
The role Wind plays is that they provide the base level of software, the operating system, for the modems. Think of it this way--your cable modem may have a chip from Broadcom running on VxWorks (Wind's OS), with other software provided by other companies, put together in a box from still another company. If Broadcom develops a newer chip with new features, one of the first things they will do is pay Wind to port VxWorks to the new chip. Without software, the chip can't do much, and VxWorks is rapidly becoming the standard that everyone has to port their chips to. That is the essence of a tornado, and the reason that Wind will be in next year's model as well as this year's model. In fact, if you look to the PC model, substantially everything except the software will get much cheaper over time except the software.
Here's where it starts to get interesting. Wind has started making a serious move into the software that operates above the operating system level. This software commands a higher selling price, and Wind has a built in advantage due to the fact that it alone has the source code to the underlying operating system, and it alone knows just what will be in the next gereration operating system before it is released. (I like to think of Microsoft using its underlying DOS to develop the market share for Windows, and using its underlying Windows to develop the market share for Word and Excel). |
