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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: techreports who wrote (44662)	7/18/2001 7:09:24 PM
From: tinkershaw	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 54805

Back in 1990 we could have guestimated that 70 or 90 million PCs would be sold by 2000 and Microsoft would get 30 bucks per computer & another 100 bucks for office applications. Plus, there was the network effect Windows developed giving MSFT strong barriers and increase it's cost/beneft ratio making Microsoft more important part of the entire computer industry. By my rough calculations, had we been back in 1990, and I believed you I'd estimate MSFT's market cap at around $220 billion. The rest is probably server and Internet technology. As for Liberate, a set-top box in every home is the goal and we are getting there. Some research agency estimates that 1 in every 3 homes will have one in the U.S. by 2005, I think penetration in Europe and Asia may be quicker. But just for the U.S were talking what 70-80 million set-top boxes, toss in another 50-70 million overseas take a 40-60% market share, at $5 a box and you get $450 million on the high side for Liberate revenues and maybe $6 billion market cap. Not quite MSFT's market but a nice 6 bagger from here using the high side of this estimate. But Liberate also empowers more than just the set-top box. So I will have to dig deeper here as most of the research I did on Liberate was in late 1999, early 2000 and I forget some of their key metrics like $$$$s per box and other revenue sources. Liberate in fact seems to be empowering entire cable networks - not exactly sure what that all entails. But rough sketch, from just set-top boxes, were seeing maybe $450 million per annum from set-top box deployments + or - depending upon marketshare and $s per box by 2005. Lord knows what by 2010 if we can find a tornado and a gorilla forming therein. But I will look closer. Not that I have any money to do so at the moment as I put my last investment dollars into OPWV and MUSE, probably won't see a ROI on those investments for sometime;( but I am confident that sometime next year I'll be much more;) but for now:( and losing the patience I know I should have. But back to Liberate and Open Wave at a later date. Tinker P.S. I am looking at some iTV start-ups in the area. If iTV were ever to tornado one could easily see the need to standardize as all this new content would need to be cranked out and Liberate would be that platform if the tornado started today, and given the switching costs, it would seem Liberate would be a gorilla should such a tornado ever form. I guess the question is when does it cross the chasm, kick a few bowling pins, and get caught in the tornado, and two how much is that gorillahood worth should it happen? Who could have accurately predicted the PC phenomenon?