This guy think Palm div. is worth 25% of Coms.
BTW, COMS paid $8.5B for US Robotics in '97 and now the whole thing is worth only $9.7B???
We gotta make the most out of Palm.
An interesting piece on Palm history:
thestreet.com
>>>> Holding the Tech World in the
Palm of Her Hand
By Jim Seymour
Special to TheStreet.com
4/27/99 12:06 PM ET
It's the Age of Lists. I've got a list, you've got a list,
everybody's got a little list. Or two, or 10. Including, it turns
out, Donna Dubinsky.
Dubinsky is one of the tech managers I most admire. After
the so-called pen computing wave rippled through the PC
world a few years ago, washing away a few hundred million
dollars -- a conservative guess -- Dubinsky, along with
co-founder Jeff Hawkins and a tiny development team,
jumped in with Palm Computing, cooked up the original
Palm Pilot ... and the rest is history.
They eventually ran out of cash and had to sell out to
modem maker U.S. Robotics to get the money to bring the
Palm to market. U.S. Robotics was in turn acquired by
3Com (COMS:Nasdaq) in mid-1997. That was a
problematic acquisition: 3Com paid $8.5 billion in stock,
and the U.S. Robotics modem line soon slipped into the
miasma affecting most dial-up-modem suppliers -- but the
Palm Pilot assets blossomed nicely. Indeed, the value of
3Com's Palm division, and the appeal of spinning it off as a
.com after an acquisition, is surely one of the reasons
Ericsson (ERICY:Nasdaq ADR) and Siemens have
supposedly been sniffing around 3Com lately. I value the
Palm.com business at something north of $2 billion, or
almost a quarter of 3Com's market cap today.
Dubinsky is long gone from 3Com, having decamped with
Hawkins last year to form HandSpring YASVS (Yet
Another Silicon Valley Start-up). Privately held HandSpring
has been quiet about its plans, but it's widely understood to
be bringing to market what amount to next-generation
palm-computing devices. Investors have filled Dubinsky's
and Hawkins' pockets with enough cash for HandSpring to
hit the market running this time, and the company is given a
good chance of success, even against Microsoft's
(MSFT:Nasdaq) huge push for its Windows CE
minioperating system and the (non-Palm) palmtop devices
that use it.
Last week Dubinsky received the annual Entrepreneurial
Achievement Award from Silicon Valley's Forum for Women
Entrepreneurs. Amid the usual encomiums at the awards
dinner, Dubinksy's generous speech stood out, in large part
because it included her three lists for success in life. (I am
indebted to Chris Nolan, who included these in her excellent
column in the San Jose Mercury News on Sunday.)
Without elaboration -- they hardly need any! -- here are
Dubinsky's wise rules for survival. Just watch: These are so
good that someone's going to build a graduate business
school course -- or a whole curriculum! -- around them ... or
should.
Dubinsky's Five Entrepreneur's Lessons
1.Incumbency can be a disadvantage.
2.Partners are not a panacea.
3.Great products matter.
4.You must challenge conventional wisdom.
5.You can never have too much money. ("I don't mean
you, personally, I mean your company.")
Dubinsky's Five Business Lessons
1.It takes a team.
2.Strategies don't move mountains. Bulldozers move
mountains. ("I stole this from Peter Drucker.'")
3.You've got to be smart and you've got to be lucky --
and you've got to know which is which.
4.You should aim for a win/win.
5.Ignore sunk costs. Just because you've spent money
on a project doesn't mean it was a good idea.
Dubinsky's Five Life Lessons
1.Have your go-to-hell money.
2.Everybody shows up again, particularly in this
Valley.
3.Get a life.
4.Wealth is worth sharing. ("You can give away more
than you think.")
5.Integrity is No. 1.
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