A few months ago, I had a chance to talk to Danny Shader, the CEO of Good Technology, which is a privately held company that develops enterprise email software for handhelds. I brought up the rumors of a possible buyout -- which he chose, wisely, not to comment on. But last week, the company did agree to sell out to Motorola (NYSE:MOT) -- a good move for both companies.
Good Technology got its start in May 2000 and has received more than $200 million in venture capital. Its investors include tier-one players like Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Essentially, Good Technology has software that allows companies to deliver information to handheld users. The software is integrated with major email systems, such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Outlook and IBM's (NYSE:IBM) Lotus Domino. Good Technology also provides security, real-time synchronization, and 24/7 support to big-deal customers like EDS (NYSE:EDS), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), and Visa.
True, Motorola has made a play to get a piece of the corporate mobile market with its new smartphone, the Q, but this is no easy task. After all, it took Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) over a decade to get traction. By purchasing Good Technology, Motorola will get both a tested platform and a talented workforce that understands how to build successful enterprise mobile applications.
Basically, Corporate America wants more than just mobile email. Companies want their workers to use applications for approvals, customer relationship management, business intelligence, and so on. This is also part of the rationale for Motorola's acquisition of Symbol Technologies, a company whose scanners can be used for things like inventory management. Although the price tag for Symbol Technologies was a nosebleed $3.9 billion, it appears that Motorola got a much better deal for Good Technology. The transaction amount for the deal did not have to be disclosed, meaning it was not material. The deal will also give Motorola plenty of leverage over mobile competitor Palm (NASDAQ:PALM), which uses Good Technology for its platform.
In light of this development, might Motorola eventually buy Palm to gain a bigger footprint in mobile? Time will tell, but at least we can see that Motorola isn't afraid to do deals.
It will take some time to integrate the transactions, so the impact on Motorola won't be immediately apparent. But over the next few years, the company should certainly be well-positioned in the corporate mobile market -- which appears to be a strong growth segment.
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Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares of any company mentioned in this article. He is currently ranked 80th out of more than 12,000 players in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's new stock-rating community that you can join for free.
