dlai

Just announced, found this on business2.com:

"If the partnership between Palm and Microsoft hasn't already mortally wounded the Palm operating system as we know it, Motorola's latest acquisition just might. This morning Moto agreed to purchase Good Technology, provider of the wireless e-mail technology used in a number of smartphones, among them Palm's Treo. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed and Motorola hasn't yet said much about its plans for Good. Still, it doesn't bode well for Palm. As analyst Jack Gold, of J. Gold Associates explained, the deal may well reshape the wireless e-mail marketplace, and probably not to Palm's benefit. "This puts pressure on Palm, as their leading e-mail app just got purchased by a competitor," Gold told ZDNet. "What do they do now to maintain market share? I think this gives Palm more incentive to promote the Windows platform over the Palm OS, as Windows Mobile -- at least the latest versions -- does not require a third party client."

treoracer

Nothing good will come from this.

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Firmware: 1.51
Software: Treo650-1.17-CNG
Hardware: A

GoodGuy

I beg to differ.

Ehsan

Ummm I just want some big company to buy Palm. And looking at recent law suit against Palm, it doesnt look like Palm will play on its own.

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Technological superiority has never won a product battle. If that were the case we would all be flying in supersonic Concordes and using Apple computers.

The key to winning the battle is a combination of price, convenience, marketing, sound business model and a bit of luck.

stroths

No pun intended?

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Treo 600 > Treo 650 > Treo 700p > Treo 700wx -> Mogul -> Touch Pro
You may like to flash, but your phone shouldn't.
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Tastypeppers

1. If moxsi.com can create a plausible beta and chatteremail.com can generate an enormously fabulous product, why on God's green earth can't Palm create a decent push email + PIM product for the PalmOS?

2. Heavy sigh.

I like the Palm UI. After dalliances with the WM5 Smartphone universe (a Dash and an SDA) I am now using my 650 again full time and I still like it. In fact I'm using the 650 more heavily than before -- ebooks and mp3's.

Tastypeppers

I'm not sure where Moto + Good ends up. What happened to Intellisync after Nokia purchased them? Kinda disappeared as a retail push email product, didn't they?

I tried Intellisync's IWEE and what an F-ing piece of absolute cr@p it is. Cancelled it. Fifteen months later f-ing Intellisync's f-ing server is sending me f-ing sync emails. What a bunch of absolute f-ing monkey . . . . (foams at the mouth and falls to the floor, writhing whilst large men in white uniforms administer sedatives).

The big competition is Microsoft's DirectPush -- it makes Good superfluous.

The benefit of Good for the rest of us it that -- theoretically -- we can be OS agnostic and still get the full OTA PIM sync we want. Go Moto + Good. Rah! Rah!

Let's just hope that there will be a PalmOS for which Good (and others) will be willing to write software.

Rome

But tech history indicates otherwise

MattM2G

Care to elaborate?

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Unlocked BlackBerry Curve 8300 (AT&T/Cingular)
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Unlocked Treo 680 Graphite (Cingular) - RETIRED

Zoomer > Palm Pilot > Palm IIIxe > Palm V > Palm M505 > Palm M515 > Treo 600 > Treo 650 >

GoodGuy

Well, I obviously can't say too much, however, all things are pointing to MOT staying with multi-platform, so that means continued support of devices outside of those in the MOT product line. Where it differs from the NOK/sync acquisition is that SYNC did not have the market penetration that Good currently does. Nor the carrier presence (they had a relationship, on a white box level, with Verizon) that Good now has. On top of it all, the architecture of the Good solution is almost analagous to that of RIMM from from a security and management perspective, whereas SYNC's was not.

The match is, IMHO, a brilliant move on MOT's part. They want into the enterprise space. We give them that. Obivously, something Good is lacking is a consumer play. MOT gives us that. This counters Nokia's acquistion of SYNC for MOT. Obviously, we will wait and see what happens.

GoodGuy

Actually, it doesn't. I was with Cisco during several acquistions and have first hand knowledge of how it does work. Could I be wrong? Sure, however, I have enough faith in the Good senior management and board to think that they are doing what is best for the organization as well as our customers.

GoodGuy

I pointed out in a previous post how SYNC and Good differed. The product had issues before the acquistion as well.

MS AS does not make Good superfluous, especially at the enterprise level. Without taking this into a EAS vs Good bake off, I will give you an analogy I give to customers. Organizations use MS Office, which they paid for, vs MS Works, which they can get for free? Why? More and better features. It is similar to Good vs EAS. Sure, in the smaller space, we may lose some share, but then again, we weren't a major player in that space before anyway. With the acquistion, we can compete in that space.

As I said, all things point to us remaining an agnostic product. However, now we will have resources of Motorola behind us for development, which means more features, faster.

whatever7

Good. Maybe they will change the stupid name. I don't want no freaking "get good" logo on my Sprint 700p.

Tastypeppers

Moto + Good = MoGo. That's better?

Rome

Good, you are a company man. I respect that.

If Good is doing as well you and your CEO claim, why sell out to Motorola? The consumer play angle doesn't make much sense. Push mail has not proven to be a requirement of the consumer market.

And if Good truly wants to be the industry standard of push email, why sell yourself to a hardware company? Why not a software or service centric company like Oracle or IBM or even Sybase?

Palm is doing everything it can to stay independent, much to the dismay of some of its major shareholders. There must be some other reasons for Good's selling out to Motorola.

questionfear

In my opinion, I think Moto is about to go head to head with RIM, and everyone else is going to be left on the sidelines.

I also think Moto has such great market penetration and consumer recognition with their products right now that they will win. RIM has the enterprise market, but not everyone needs email-only, and Moto can offer phones to employers that create a work/life balance; stay in touch with the office, show off pics of the kids. And with the acquisition of Symbol, Moto is trying to get into the hardcore enterprise market that needs things like heavy duty scanner/email/phones. They get that down, they can slim down the profile and sell them like hotcakes to companies who don't want to equip their road warriors with delicate yet expensive smartphones...

There's a sneaky part of me that wonders if this is also Moto trying to put together more solutions for more of their phones...the Ming has done quite well for them in China, and that's linux based, right? Imagine a linux-based RAZR that pushes your Gmail/Yahoo/etc, just like SMS and calls...not outside the realm of possibility, since RAZRs already do VZW navigator, play mp3s...There's just some part of me that doubts this is a Q-only move.

GoodGuy

Rome....

You make valid points and questions that arose today when the announcement was made. I truly wish I could tell you numbers (subscribers, revenue, etc), but I simply can't. What I can say is we have had exponential growth over the last 18 or so months. 4,000 customers as of Jan this year to over 12,000 now. The subscriber growth has been even more so.

I still think we can are (or can be, depending on your POV) the industry standard for enterprise wireless communications. By becoming part of the wireless group at Motorola, we have the assets of a world-class engineering group and availability of capital to continue development of the product. Also, Motorola has an established international presence that it would take Good years to cultivate.

I agree, as it stands now, email has not proven to be a requirement in the consumer market. There are several reasons this is the current state of affairs, in my opinon:

1) QWERTY based devices, when compared to standard phones, are cost prohibitive for consumers.

2) There has not been a push-product (with all due respect to Chatter. Love ya, Marc! ) that provided the email experience that consumers are used to, i.e., Outlook. GMM has that experience, but has strictly been an enterprise solution.

With the combination of lowered device prices and, hopefully, with Motorola being able to port over GMM to a consumer based offering without sacrificing feature and functionality, I think there will be a paradigm shift in consumer demand of email/PIM applications.

Sybase already has an email solution as they purchase Extended Systems. We aren't a fit for Oracle as their presence is in the back office server and data space. IBM might have been a fit, but again, they are more within the core of the network.

GoodGuy

Wow. You sure you aren't on the payroll too?

All joking aside, I think you have hit the nail on the head with several of your points.

surur

I agree that the combination of Symbol with its ruggered devices and Good with remote device management and messaging (ignore the e-mail part) will be very powerful in extending messaging to the teeming lower ranks. This could be a very profitable area.

Surur

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Rome

Good, a few additional questions/comments if I may:


- Assuming that Good is doing as well as you said, why didn't Good just do an IPO to raise more capital? If RIM is worth some $20+ billion, Good should have no problem raising a few hundred million.

- Yes, Motoroal has lots of engineers, but moto is mainly a hardware shop with little enterprise software/solution experience.

- The biggest challenge for push email on the consumer side is not just the hardware cost, but rather the software cost. You surely don't expect consumers to pay for an annual license of good server on top of their montly data connection charge. If one can get his AOL email on his treo with the basic unlimited data package, why would he want to pay extra $$$ to get Good. It is one thing when my company is paying for push email, it is another when it comes out of my own pocket. And most consumers check their personal emails with the Internet browser, not with the Microsoft outlook.

- By selling yourself to Moto, Good risks alienating many of its other hardware partners, including Palm, HTC, Nokia etc. I am not sure that this is a trade off I am willing to make.

I certainly hope that Moto keeps Good independent and at an arm's length, but I am skeptical.