Otter,
I agree. I can see no way another convertible, loan financing from institutions, etc would ever fly. One look at the balance sheet and the fact that Preferred A,B, and C would be lined up ahead of them, makes this possibility remote.
The overwhelmingly logical scenario would be financing from MSFT. But logic is not something I can find patterned in GMGC's roadmap thus far. I look back at the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in February of that year. This signaled mandated changes in the telecommunications industry regardless of the inevitable plodding timetable. Dr. Markman came on board in September of 1996. I think I read somewhere they at that time they began looking at 17 different business models. Nothing firm may have been decided on until at least January 1997. Now if it was decided they would pursue the telecom model rolling out a fully integrated mobile professional service model, complete with the necessary hiring, customer service fulfillment, service integration, etc. from the start, and knowing the expense involved, coupled with the apparent telecom marketing plan of deliver and wait, then I think these guys are absolutely nuts. Further, marketing for the mobile professional consisting of Satchi & Satchi radio spots, newspaper, reseller development, then what has occurred is doubly nuts. No one in Business 101 would pursue such a strategy, would they?
I cant help and hope but think that there has been an invisible hand guiding this entire process from nearly the beginning of this re-building. And that hand is, of course, Microsoft.
I have spent the majority of the week-end reading the Microsoft wireless strategy, reading the Seybold reports and his newsletters and trying to come to some conclusion whether this Microsoft foray into wireless is vapor or real. After all, they have put up only 25M and apparently all of the personnel will come from the Eudora team at Qualcomm; Qualcomm, in effect, abandoning Eudora for Revolv.
On the other hand, the Microsoft white paper lays out a comprehensive plan of involvement in wireless across the entire spectrum of Microsoft product lines from BackOffice to frontoffice. What they have is a repository of server, development, application content developed over the years that needs both protecting and expansion.. from the growing Aol/Netscape/Sun beachhead, and probably from Ibm/Lotus as well.
But more than this is the near total disarray of the communications industry with globalization/merger/dereg activity and now throw in the quilted wireless data networks and the fact that this industry's infrastructure from devices, to networks, to declining price subscription models is now poised for explosive growth, I think WirelessKnowledge makes an awful lot of sense. The wireless operators have not and will not be in a position to provide customer service nor any substantive level of expertise necessary to provide security or bridging firewalls. Nor can they develop the necessary national brand recognition for lack of capital. I think this is Microsoft's unique opportunity from the "first mile" to the "last mile". In their white paper they mention developing more NOC's based on the WirelessKnowledge model ,in effect, creating a network of communication hubs for disparate wireless data networks. I cant help but believe that GMGC is in these plans substantially. It's hard for me to believe that they would have pulled this model out of thin air, integrate services in a full model just like what Revolv is implementing and all of this be a matter of coincidence: Knowing full well that their financial situation would be precarious at best and only allow them one shot at a marketing thrust if otherwise. Would anyone be this reckless or desperate? Would anyone spend 2 years developing such a product for 15 minutes of fame with Satchi & Satchi?
Inevitably, I have to see GMGC as an integral part of this larger picture. Nothing else makes sense. But for the life of me though I have never been able to get a clear picture of what the hell they are doing. Who knows maybe GMGC's NOC may eventually become a full blown mirror site for WirelessKnowledge. Maybe MagicTalk will be integrated into all future NOC's. After all, the communication pathway they are describing is from corporate LAN/WAN to IT central corporate to wireless carrier to GMGC NOC to WK NOC and back again all in real time.
I currently reside in a very thick ether.
regards,
stephen |
