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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: peter grossman who wrote (36203)	11/13/1999 3:14:00 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 45548

Here is my guess at a valuation based on comparable market valuations. Palm's participation in OpenSky joint venture: $1.8 B. This is the same valuation that the other participant, Aether, gets. Palm's palm.net, the Palm VII based wireless internet service: $2 B. This is a conservative valuation, a little more than OpenSky, since by IPO time it will be a going service with a proven track record. Palm's PDA hardware business: $5 Billion. This is a conservative valuation of the hardware side of Palm. This is what generates all the revenue now, and is growing at an average of 100%. It will have a run rate of $1 Billion at the time of the IPO. Palm's Palm OS, which is being licensed by a bunch of companies including Nokia and Qualcomm, and the Web clipping technology and associated browser: $10 Billion. IMO, this is a conservative estimate based on the valuation of Phone.com (PHCM), a company that makes just a WAP browser for wireless devices, whose current market valuation is $8 Billion. So, the total for Palm is IMO, $16.8 Billion. I will give the rest of COMS a conservative valuation of $10 Billion (this is a bit less than what it is right now for the whole company and includes the $3 Billion stash in cash and investments), for a total of $26.8 Billion, or a bit more than $75 / share.

To: peter grossman who wrote (36203)	11/13/1999 3:42:00 PM
From: Mort	Respond to of 45548

This might help to shed some light on the Palm IPO valuation. If BSquare who writes software for Windows CE is valued at 1.3 billion, then what is Palm worth with the Hardware and OS? Comdex: Geeks in the digital desert Net gadgets expected to be popular as confab turns 20 By Brenon Daly, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 1:06 PM ET Nov 13, 1999 Also: Market Pulse Internet Daily LAS VEGAS (CBS.MW) -- Thousands of computer enthusiasts are expected to hit Comdex next week, test driving new products, inking alliances and listening to speeches from some of the tech industry's largest players. Comdex, the computer industry's largest show, is expected to attract 200,000 visitors. The hot areas at the week-long confab in Las Vegas are expected to be e-commerce, broadband and so-called "information appliances." These slimmed-down gadgets, such as Palm Pilots and set-top boxes, allow users to surf the Net without all the hassle of logging on through a PC. "Right now in the Net appliance space, the only real products springing up are handhelds, cell phones and set-top boxes," said Michelle Abraham, a senior analyst at In-Stat. But already, Abraham has seen early developments that add Net access to refrigerators, for instance. "There's a big push in the Net appliances," Abraham said, but she concedes that some of it is "high-end, how-far-can-we-go" enthusiasm. Palm play Market watchers project more people will get online using these appliances than traditional PCs. The expected growth has helped shares of Palm Pilot's owner, 3Com, as investors looked to get invested in the handheld computer industry. The networking giant (COMS: news, msgs) plans to spin off its Palm Computing business into a separate unit early next year. Palm generated $570 million or about 10 percent of 3Com's 1999 sales. See related story. Already, BSquare (BSQR: news, msgs), which makes software for handheld running Microsoft's thinned-down Windows CE, has convinced the market that it's worth more than $1.3 billion. Another area that people will be paying attention to the nascent effort toward networking the entire home, like on the cartoon The Jetsons. In-Stat's Abraham noted, however, that those developments are still "more of a push, than pull, in terms of consumer demand."