>How beneficial are WIND's recent acquisitions, is there any chance they could back fire?
They can't backfire because they don't amount to that much of a commitment. The NCI deal was a make or which one to buy decision. The hidden bonus that NCI/Navio had already ported much of the browser/graphics to VxWorks is suggestive of relatively smooth sailing.
The OST deal was even smaller, and was basically an easy, cheap way to extend the Tornado environment. The OST product was already packaged and sold through the partner program as an optional extension of Tornado. No down side here, plus WIND gets about 20 developers in Scotland. WIND likes to set up small development/support shops in strategic places, and this one becomes the 3rd or 4th one on the British Isles. They also have one in France, and maybe others in Europe. Recall they also acquired an operation in Israel last year, which I believe mainly provides sales and support.
>will they produce and add to WIND's bottom line [I know there is nothing for certain in life, but if you were a betting man]?
I'll take that bet. (How much was it?)
I suspect that WIND was being pressed by their customers to provide tight, integrated browser/graphics capability for Tornado for EID. If your customers are demanding something, then satisfying that demand is good for the bottom line, almost by definition.
The OST deal is guaranteed to add to revenues simply because WIND already sells the capability as a third party passthrough, so they wouldn't have bought the company if their customers didn't like the product, or if they didn't have expectations of continuing to license the product to new customers. Again, almost by definition, the revenues will be extremely profitable, because the 20 acquired engineers simply displace 20 engineers they would have had to hire anyway.
Allen |
