Hi Mark;
I completely agree with you about the Telcos being of minimal long-term value to GMGC. They're hoping that people use lots of Cel minutes via customers who manage their email and finances during the morning and evening commutes. However, my version of the vision shows MagicTalk (running through GMGC NOCs) providing the front-end to Hotmail, Netscape Mail, and Yahoo Mail (which will all expand to handle voice, fax, banking, and Web surfing). These accounts will handle the needs of individual users and small business. Corporate IT will continue their outsourcing trend, and VPN's will host the unified message box, ala the recent Microsoft / Qwest announcement (using Magictalk, of course).
Yes, NOCs are such transparent modules vis a vis the Internet. I recently was involved in spec'ing services from companies producing eCommerce Agent technology. To make a long story short, two of these, Jango and Junglee, were based on a NOC model and one, OnDisplay was based on a 'technology provider / Systems Integrator model. I believe all three companies will find successful niches, but the two based on NOCs drummed up so much high-profile portal business so fast that they immediately got bought by Excite and Amazon, respectively, for big bucks (Junglee for $280 million). The beauty of their model is someone like Yahoo can provide Junglee's services via Weblinks, transparently to the customer so it still looks like a part of Yahoo. What did Yahoo invest to make this happen? Very little. OnDisplay, although they're a great company and will do well in the long-term, is still chugging along and dealing with very high sales costs, long sales cycles, and long integration times. They're competing against Y2K. My perception is that they'll struggle with cash-flow problems for a long-time given their model.
Even though Telcos probably aren't going to be GMGCs bread and butter for the long term, I do feel that the Telco's are REALLY important, for the near-term. GMGC's biggest competitor is not Wildfire or Webley. Its biggest competition is market ignorance. Every high-profile deal right now brings really valuable exposure to GMGC, Portico, and Magictalk. (Of course, this also brings the stock price up and makes us rich, but I digress... :-)
Cheers,
Drew |
