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Motorola Takes On RIM: Hurts Palm |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 14 November 2006 |
Motorola has announced it plans to acquire mobile email provider, Good Technology, in a deal that will allow it to
take on corporate email leader, Research in Motion (RIM). Hurt in the fray also is Treo maker
Palm.
Despite media headlines trumpeting how bad this is for RIM, financial
pundits are now saying the impact will be even more significant for
Palm.
Motorola, is the world's second largest handset maker after Nokia, which already
has its own mobile email technology picked up when it acquired
Intellisync.
The move to buy Good Technology will allow Motorola to compete more
successfully in the corporate email space and delivers it an instant
market for integrated email, security and remote management services.
Apart form the existing Good client-base of 12,000 enterprises,
Motorola gets access to the company's existing channel, unfetted use of
the development team and a whole bunch of existing software goodies
such as Secure Over-The-Air
management, Mobile Messaging, Mobile Intranet, Mobile Defense and tight
integration with corporate email systems from IBM and Microsoft.
Good Technology provides a version of its software on Palm's Treo
devices and the two companies are said to be 'close'. Although Motorola
has said it will continue with the multi-device
strategy under which Good Technology develops and sells solutions that
run on a variety of smartphones, the folks at
Palm must be looking over their shoulders.
In the long run, allowing Palm access to the Good solutions set would
take away form the key strategic advantage the acquisition offers to
Motorola.
Good
Technology is a privately held company owned by venture capitalists, so
there were no financial details revealed about the deal. Terms of the
transaction were not required to be disclosed as they are not material
to its financial results. This compares with September's acquisition of
Symbol Technologies for US$3.9 billion which certainly was material.
Palm has been tipped
recently as a potential takeover target, which means discussions are
probably already well advanced. Motorola would have to be listed as a
potential buyer of Palm, though the price tag is likely to be steep,
Motorola has shown a willingness to close big deals as evidenced by the
Symbol acquisition, but it's not clear what Motorola would gain from such an acquisition.
www.good.com
www.motorola.com
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