I called on MCOM in the late 80's, and their efforts towards building a franchise hasn't shown progress in all that time
What were they doing back then? If it was developing broadband wireless modems for the consumer, they probably weren't very successful at it because the market for it wasn't very big. Bygones.
Out of curiosity, what technology does Metricomm control that makes you feel they can compete with Qualcomm?
The Ricochet2 wireless broadband network. It's a fast, reliable network set up in 12 major metropolitan areas. I have a hard time getting my cell phone to work out here in the bay area but the Ricochet modem is a dream. For $75/month you can use the web anywhere and it's easily twice as fast as a dialup connection. It's not blindingly fast but it's very very nice to have a robust connection on your laptop. Anyone who's used 9600bps WAP crap positively wets their shorts when they see Ricochet in action, and is told they can sign up and use it RIGHT NOW.
The price point is a bit high for the average consumer, but the people that really want this are business users who take their work on the road, and you had better believe companies will be happy to shell out a measly 75 clams a month to give an employee fast connectivity.
On the business side, Metricom has signed up major resellers, including UUNet, Juno, and MCI WorldCom (who are also investors). All the major service rollouts are expected to be completed in the first half of this year, so expenses will be dropping off dramatically. Everyone's arguing over which 3G technology is the better one .. well, why even bother with that race? It's a bunch of companies all still clustered around the starting line.
I guess the G&K point of view is that the Ricochet wireless modem is going to go the way of the Betamax. And I will grant you that is a real possibility. After all, how is Intel still able to sell their processors when they are clearly inferior to and clearly twice the price of those sold by AMD? But my point is .. regarding all this CDMA hype .. what happens if it DOESN'T materialize as well as you had hoped? Something will already be filling that gap - Ricochet. And even CDMA does work out, it still may be too late. And this entire posts discounts what Metricom will have in 2003, which might be a lot more than it has today.
I'm just noting that in SOME cases it seems prudent to hedge a G&K bet with a smaller competitor, when that competitor poses a very legitimate threat.
-G |
