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Originally Posted by radleyp
I am not convinced that this company can survive, and these "strategies" make me wonder more than ever. Partnering with others suggests that they don't have enough to go it alone. And alarm bells go off when I see talk of seeking new funds. This is possibly a plea to third-party developers not to abandon the Tapwave ship just yet. What's more there is no announcement of anything new that is real. Not a good sign. Philippe Radley
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I'm a "glass half full" kind of guy, so I see this as potentially being very positive.
1. Partnering with other companies to co-brand and develop new devices using "Zodiac technologies" for multimedia, navigation and communications solutions. Sounds to me like it isn't really a niche but rather the way mobile convergence is trending. You'd need really deep pockets to go it alone these days considering how commodotized PDAs are, and don't forget that Tapwave is a small,
privately funded startup.
2. Byron Connell clearly states that these OEM partnerships are done deals, future devices
will (not
may) incorporate "Zodiac technologies" and that a recent deal with a major Chinese company recently closed. This tells me that official press releases are forthcoming, and they couldn't publicly or even "unofficially" discuss these deals before they were done.
I find it somewhat ironic that you're not "convinced" that they can survive, yet it looks like they're taking the steps necessary to ensure that Zodiacs, in one form or another, will be around for quite some time.
Why?
The Zodiac is the world's first (and currently the only) multimedia & gaming centric PDA. It's getting more clear every day that they were ahead of the curve, saw this trend and acted on it before anyone else. The
Tungsten X,
rumored multimedia and gaming-centric Axim, and
increasing popularity of portable video (*cough* "mass market potential" *cough*) as witnessed by the myriad of new PVP offerings are all testaments to the trend in handheld convergence. It looks to me like Tapwave was a "PDA Prognosticator". Based on
Jupiter Research's predictions about the future of PDAs, two out of the three "forks" will probably have a number of devices using "Zodiac technology" thanks to Tapwave's OEM deals.
So to sum up: With these trends and Tapwave's partnerships, I'll have to respectfully disagree
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Brian