If I were a buying man (and I'm not), I would look at the ensuing drop in price closely, while avoiding the "trying to catch a falling knife" syndrome. No one bothers to sue a company that doesn't have a strong future.
In my very-humble opinion, this suit is obviously not about going after a deep-pockets company for some buckos. Intuit is terrified that it's one remaining golden goose (Quicken.Com) is gonna be trampled by the portals, who can apparently bring content to market much, much faster than they can. Let's not forget that short of some VERY profitable equity investments they made, Quicken is a mature product, and they're practically giving TurboTax away these days.
Let's see -- what's the worst that can happen...Let's pretend that Intuit wins an injunction and some nominal dollar damages. They then rush Quicken.com e-bill to market, with a HUGE advertising blitz (after all, they've only got a six month window, at best). In the meantime, the portals are crankin' up the PR machines about e-bills, and are jumpin' out of their skins to throw their hats in the ring on day 181.
On day 181, IMO, e-bills would have far, far more exposure to the public at large than if nature had just run its course without the suit.
One other possibility -- Transpoint sees this as their dying gasp to grab victory out of the jaws of defeat and makes a run for the portals. Then, everyone, including Intuit, would be in a world of Sh*t. Not only that, but I think there might be justification for some dandy class action lawsuits from other large shareholders (Pete, Gintel, TRowePrice, etc.), against a 20% "controlling" shareholder that boobytrapped itself and threw away the potential for huge market share to MircoCitiSoft...
Just one guy's opinion....
RK |
