Anyone else think that the big TEM companies are getting into trouble?
My quick industry scan sees a few disturbing trends.
Quickcomm and TnT got sold to Verizon for peanuts. Rivermine got bought out by Emptoris seemingly just to get over the $100M IPO hump, and Tangoe is so broke it’s looking to raise $75M from an IPO to ‘pay down dept’.
I’m thinking the Venture capital guys who have been funding the TEM companies to date have been hurt by the economy and are trying desperately to pull the ripcord before it gets any worse.
Quickcomm ran out of cash, and with Verizon being their biggest customer, and keeping the light on, it makes sense to sell out. But for a reported $7M??? How much dept did they have? (a ‘global leader in TEM’ selling for just $7M, how global can you be for just $7M?????)
Tangoe reports that they have never made a profit, and that the $75M they need to pay down debt makes the IPO look more like an investor bail-out. (a global leader in TEM, that has the same fiscal policy as the US federal government)
Rivermine had some of the lowest customer satisfaction scores according to an AOTMP survey. Any wonder IBM dumped them as a preferred partner, and is scrambling to replace them.But if you believe the marketing, a global leader in TEM, and TEM marketing spending. ~probably the only reason Gartner is still publishing them as a ‘quadrant leader’. Gartner is for profit research, any surprise Rivermine still ranks well in their books (their accounting books)
