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barge, my content was not belittling,
It is observing what is and what did happen.
Wave was presumably in a position to become a real actual piece of Trustonic, they failed. They had put zillions into E2100 etc.
They did good getting Dell, but for whatever reason Dell decided to dump Wave, bought a company that could do some of what they needed, and after further development, renegotiated the contract to lower the price of what they get from Wave, and raise the price of what they plan on using Credant for, and eventually, supplanted Wave.
You are pointing to things where Wave spent enormous capital, things where OTHERS are at the table, not Wave, not Rivetz.
Measure what is.
I believe it was a failure of management. Hopefully new management can pick up the pieces and not fail. but the fact is SKS had a staff of hundreds and 100s of millions in assets and he failed to get himself a seat at the Trustonic table. Don't think he didn't want it.
barge, interesting speculation, but I don't buy it.
I want to add correction:
Wave is not a founding partner of Trustonic, they are a day won jump on me-too me-too partner, along with Intercede and and variety of other companies that own or control just as much of Trustonic as Wave.
ARM, G+D, Gemplus, TLM ... these are what make up Trustonic, these are the founders.
Presumably Wave sought to be a founding party, presumably they sought to have the Embassy OS if you will be integral, presumably they sought to have their TAN infrastructure be a formal integral component, perhaps they sought to license the Embassy patents ...
but none of this happened.
Rivetz is building a bitcoin app, sure they hope to somehow become a central manager of that space (for what it is worth SKS has sought to be a central manager of any such space as long as there have been notions of such a space). Good for him. There is miles between his dreams and what is. It doesn't mean it could not be, but what you claim simply isn't. As it stands this Rivetz notion is not well grounded in reality. That SKS has taken the words E2100 out of certain paragraphs and inserted Trustonic does no actually represent anything other than aspiration.
Running with the hype a little bit,
the question becomes price point.
THere are all sorts of notions of evidence, 'large customer' 'new customer' (this new thing actually means something as a big 3 customer already has ERAS)
I used to like to think that ERAS had pricing power in the $50 a seat range, it did three times at least.
If one considered a disintegrated model, then ERAS is actually ... well, I'm not sure.
Lets pretend for a second that VSC is worth $20 a seat, a fully managed with ERAS version $30. Those numbers nare rich, I expect less. SED management (an artist previously known as TDM) kinda the same thing, maybe more like 10$-20$. A WEM client is not currently on the table, that thing has been sent to the shop and it seems the soonest iteration is to task it to supply chain attestation ($5 tops).
The fact is ERAS is/was IMO what VSC is. ERAS was about managing credentials of clients and fating their access based on that credentialing ,,, known devices, known through the TPM, managed through ERAS. What part of this is not VSC?
One can only brand and deliver identical functionality under so many guises.
With all of the New Wave stuff what I have lost in the shuffle is pricing power, what constitutes a distinct offering, and how I can project that to the top line.
Finally, I think Wave's margins have been historically over represented. Consider BP, months of rework, months of customization. I'm not an accountant, but 5% COS seems iffy to me. I think significant chunks of COS were shoveled off to RD, which in the end will influence the multiples the market chooses to award WAVX SP. Margin is a big deal, is the margin of the past a lie?
The effort to back-fill. apologize, and variably eulogize SKS is an inevitable one. At some point if I define him only as a scoundrel with zero value, I define myself ... for having ever invested.
So a litany of self-protective contrasts will appear, but in the end he is a dirt bag. Important things happened: the often forgotten acquisition of N*Able may well form the critical basis for which there is a Wave.
The interactions with and apparent subsumation of NTRU similarly provide value here and now.
Fortunately the new guy seeks to unlock the value of these few things.
I do recall saying at the time, on day one, that the purchase of the Thib SED patent was simply a signing bonus. It is refreshing to me that BS has a similar appraisal of that 'property'. What was some sort of quintessential ownership of technology to some is a doorstop to myself, and apparently BS. Cleaning hose is not just a matter of dead leaves in pipelines, it extends to delusions in other places as well.
(I don't know if this effort of yours is something that suffers editing or if it is simply train of thought, but the style in the end is rather capable. Maybe you'll teach me to write some day. I particularly enjoy the willingness to start sentences with conjunctions, I grimace every time I do it, but do it often. Rules be damned, it works for me).
During the SHM BS was essentially being offered, almost compelled, to acknowledge a 'things will take time post launch' position. BS simply did not bite on that, he clearly allowed hype in the general direction of a significant order closely associated with v2 VSC product launch.
I am stupefied by that.
A crafty questioner (is it NW?, I think not due the patently inappropriate use of the word "insinuate" when the sought for word was likely 'imply')(I digress) in any event as I have communicated before, the questioner reconstructed a timeline in order to parse sales cycles (3-5 quarters) stated pilots and stated launch dates versus a known RSA demo/interest event, previous big3 players and so on. The net was can one imply (insinuate) sales cycle maturity circa v2 VSC product launch, and I believe the answer was yes. And that were that to be the case, the customer would be a new customer, not a retread.
These were coals of hype and BS was offered a bucket of water to cool the flames and he, IMO, said he wont be needing that.
I could really have it all wrong, but given the miserable track record of the company, well, I think that at least they think they have something going on.
Crap NW, you were there, do I have the gist of this interaction correct?
How possible is it that this house of hype is built and that it ends up consummated with a whimper?
I'm on the record for saying that there is a 33% chance of a consummation failure as measured by an 8-k worthy deal (specifically one in excess of $500k within 4 weeks of July 22).
But for heavens sake, they (Wave) really are pumping VSC and putting marks on calendars.
Could they be so daft as to not deliver?
Barge, there is a place for these bit players I referred to, a place for those that own nothing regarding the space ... where is this space for these small people? ... Developer forums.
Your hero just released a PR saying that he is joining my kids and his kids, that he is now an app developer.
Certainly (as I tell my kids) there are riches to be found in developing a nice app, but SKS is now just another developer running around with all of the other developers.
He is now a peer of my children, an ambitious app developer, but with one important difference, my children have integrity.
I apologize in advance to my children for having in any way compared them to SKS, the preponderance of the comparison in my mind was one of contrast. To SKS' considerable fortune, they are not focusing their efforts on BitCoin (but you never know ....).
Lexi, SKS, my kids, my neighbors, app developers all.
SKS killed your consumer play barge, he did it a long time ago.
Barge, Rivetz is an app,
one measly app in this grand consumer play that you have long seen Wave as the master of.
I was all-in on this big play way back when.
E2100 was to be the hardware/firmware host to any variety of apps that would generate revenue by licensing secure execution space, provide for trusted app switching(patent protected I believe), occasionally realize per transaction fees, and protect apps and customers from the actions and behaviors of neighboring apps and customers.
E2100 does not exist. Trustzone does exist, and Wave (and Rivetz) own exactly 0.0000000% of that architecture, of the governing OS, ... of anything of it. Wave (and Rivitz) own zip nil nada of that enterprise. They had E2100, they own nothing of the nearest facsimile of the E2100 notion. Your hero failed failed failed failed failed in placing wave in the place of your dreams. Solms did not do this failure, SKS did. It is done, the failure was some time ago.
What did SKS deliver on this dream of secure execution space, consumer apps and so on.? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
SKS has now taken his whole world dream and dropped it down to one measly participant app in that dream. I hope you realize just how far it has all fallen, even SKS seeks to only be a "bit" player.
Now, having been fired from Wave Systems SKS seeks to develop an app (not an environment host, not a lead player, not a patent leveraged player in multiple independent trust domains none of these things), SKS now hopes to make an app, one app, for bitcoins.
One app.
My kids can write apps, so too apparently can SKS'.
Your hero is now a bit player commodity relegated to the land of any other code-hack.
They will no doubt seek funding at some point, go ahead, jump in on one intellectually unprotected app by a guy who cant spell shoe laces.
Finally, if you want to dialogue, do so here. That protected space all full of safety belts doesn't suit you.
tkc, it's worth repeating
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103619343
alea, I think it may well have been the old model as well, but lost/mired in ineptitude, distraction, arrogance, and just plain shoddy interfaces. The old guard spoke towards cross-selling and upselling and so on, they just made the path towards that as opaque to the customer as possible. I think most software providers seek this at some level, those that actually accomplish it are fewer. It simplifies development as well. As long as the interacting calls between modules are kept largely standard, individual modules can undergo significant upgrade and/or modification with rocking the boat of the others, new modules enter at times, old modules for functions no longer desired can be parked in legacy spaces as so on.
alea, I'm an end-user of software (essentially on a far away planet) where it is all on my machine managed through a console, I purchase a multiseat core suite of modules for me and my friends at a discount which carries an annual maintenance, and purchase keys for additional modules I use. There is overlap in the modules, and tasks I can perform using core modules can be ported to premium specialty modules as the size or scope of the tasks exceeds the more basic functionality of the core modules, and I can buy functionality from the provider as a cloud service. It is a remarkable seamless streamlined scalable solution albeit for a limited specialty market. I would think e.g. Autocad likely works this way as well. It is very effective from a cross-selling and user experience standpoint.
Currently on Wave's site there is ERAS for SED and ERAS for TPM. It seems this would migrate to just ERAS under which there is TPMs, SEDs, VSCs, SFND's DLP suite, WEM?, and one could imagine a cloud encryption server (scrambls).
NW, don't know. From long ago I was under the impression that an end-point missing a key required a touch - a serial number to the OEM, and the specific key provided. I thought KTM was the module that managed keys once you had them.
Exciting to work at Wave again?
BS mentioned at the SHM that a goal was to make it exciting to work at Wave again. While I'm sure that engineers like doing new cool things and so on, normal people also like to mix in a little success every once in a while. The previous leadership was not normal, or didn't view success the way normal people do. This must have been a real drag for much of the staff. Sales people trying to sell things that weren't particularly sellable, engineers building things that don't sell, finance people fruitlessly trying to find money. Customers know this. It pervades a place. It got to where I didn't know what Wave was doing either, I don't think anybody did (my equity participation reflected that).
I believe I now know what Wave is doing, what they make, and who they want to sell it to. I see a strategy pre and post Win8, I can see a collection of independently marketable standalone modules, and a home called ERAS for them to live for customers that want more.
It could be pretty slick. Were I staff I would be excited about that. Output per worker would likely increase substantially.
Obviously the next several weeks, the VSC launch, the Q2 report with perhaps some info on OEMs ... all of these things require execution, but at least I feel I know what the heck is going on.
NW, thanks. very informative. eom
NW, that largely describes my concern about the presence of a leveragable installed base (that I lumped somewhat errantly into a 'bios-TPM-TSS peculiarities' thingy as my memory was vague). The presumption must be for VSC, that in the case of the enterprise target win7 machines, the inconsistent presence of an endorsement key is not an issue. The absence of such keys would make a rather rocky road in terms of scalability. Correct?
yes, if one gets penetration with 7 perhaps they persist in 8.
while not knowing exactly what VSC will offer I wonder at what level it is actually different than ERAS for TPMs. Is ERAS just too complicated of an idea, and by calling it a VSC it finds a market? But in so doing sells for less given an incumbancy that must be overcome.
I just dont knowd. Perhaps someone more familiar like NW can distinguish VSC from ERAS for TPMs.
I hit the message limit wall yesterday, jabberjaw DS. Time to pull back and watch for a few weeks.
and cypher (in agreement), in a general sense Wave VSC is not a rocket thingy IMO, it is leveraging a legacy situation that the latest OS may eventually subsume, and doing so against incumbents where the attractive feature is price point not novel capability.
MS still refers to TPM centralized management under Win8 being a third party service, so one could imagine any Win7 VSC footprint persisting through a more generalized TPM management offering.
A flag that they get paid for.
cypher, good points, but
I think Win8 adoption is going to continue to be sluggish, and smartcard/token systems are a rather expensive nightmare for IT. Yes, change is resisted, but the argument is Wave can undercut that cost by 80%. 50% and I agree with you, but 80% becomes attractive. Many have only very recently moved to Win7 from XP/Vista.
I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
alea, suitable for DoD yes, but I'm thinking this is more likely a bank/financial, a DIB, or a health care concern. That narrowed it down.
cartoon, I'm just looking for something the company would be inclined to 8-k, I personally put the threshold of that for Wave Systems here and now at >$400k. They could easily pull an 8k trigger lower, they have never sold a dedicated VSC solution in any real quantity.
Otherwise I have no guess going on, in the past there was a basis for estimating a seat fee, this is rather new, so if they e.g. get 50k seats at $20 a seat I would be rather pleased. I think $20 a seat might be the upper limit, but there is info out there in the smart card world that would allow for higher seat fees. Somewhere 10-20 per seat is my guess.
All just crazy guessing. Maybe NW or somebody more familiar with this application has a clue.
CAC in gov,
as I see it a gov CAC performs a number of functions. It allos physical things like building access, and when slipped into a card reader allows an user to log an endpoint into the LAN and/or VPN. The CAC carries carries credentials that govern the capabilities of that endpoint (senior level versu junior level folks having different privileges). That is my understanding, but I have no idea if it is actually the case. I see VSC as doing this with respect to endpoints. Endpoints are potentiated based on TPM stored credentials, endpoint access is old fashioned passwords. Perhaps some sort of AD system catgorizes credential levels based in username/password, but success depends on a TPM stored credential thus verifying the device. Two component with the smartcard portion replaced by the TPM, strictly for LAN/VPN applications.
alea, I have VSC as displacing e.g RSA SecureID or CAC in *.gov, as a tool to allow a machine network (VPN) access.
Lockeed e.g. was paying a lot of money to RSA for its dongles when the phising effort breached the dongles.
I see the payment processing thing as coming later, more in keeping with Wave's statements regarding EMV and an effort to bag a percentage to the two-tier per transaction card present/card not present fee structure between banks, vendors, and major card providers.
Its what makes VSC so simple. Seriously, I see this implementation as simply Pwc's network access application going formal as a real product. In the case of PwC they built and used their own PKI infrastructure and Wave provided the CSP to allow them to leverage TPMs.
I see this as Wave taking that CSP use, packaging it, layering a management interface on it, and integrating it into some sort of PKI infrastructure.
And in case it isn't obvious, I am way out of my depth here.
Share price,
so while battle hardened and tired 'Voids look forwards towards the notion of big numbers, I would recommend curbing one's enthusiasm.
It is extremely unlikely that VSC will command seat fees Wavoids are accustomed to in those few instances where good things happened (GM/BASF/BP), seat fees will likely be somewhere around 20% of those previously enjoyed.
Given the hole, the collapse of Dell and so on, it takes a FEW GM size VSC deals to even scratch towards breakeven.
The plan could execute perfectly (crap, so far they have pulled some real coups, the PP chief among them) but even with a perfect plan execution, lets say 5 GM size deals, half a freekin million seats, that's 10m top-line, recorded over 4 quarters. That is not even breakeven without some bundling help from Samsung etc.
Breakeven against top line in the low 30 millions only makes for a reasonable valuation of 150-300m or 3-6 a share (the 3 being more sensible, the 6 being all sorts of visions of glory, which the profit margin could support).
But even in a perfect plan, that would be next March.
I fear wavoid confusion when the numbers attached to seats for VSC disappoints. The pricing power in the GM etc deals was amazing. I would not expect that going forward.
alea/b_p,
In my own little "DD" I found the intertubes to be full of info on Smart card seat costs, life cycle costs, etc broken down into pyramids based on the nature/type of solution, the degree of management, the type of device, etc etc etc.
I walked away saying to myself ... o.k., something like $20-200 per seat with the preponderance of the desirable features and so on landing at around, say $100-120 per year per seat. The device fee was the lions share of this cost, in this case a chip based card with a reader (often built into the keyboard) but this does not include (which these sources provided some numbers on) lost/recovery etc.
In a web thingy given by a Wave sales/tech back in Q1 there were comments to towards Wave could save them 60%, they wanted to save 80% or something like that.
Long and short of it, I'm thinking $10-20 a seat, perhaps as a bottom depending on what the software offers in terms of attractive easy management features. GM came through the door around $50 a seat, and it was for a lot of seats with years of maintenance upfront.
Point is even a rather big deal of 100k seats could weigh in at more like $1-2m than $10m. ERAS for SED commanded a remarkable price in those circumstances where it actually sold.
And Blue, my crow prep is against the notion of an 8-k VSC deal within 4 weeks of July 22 ... so there is still time for me to don a bib.
so, pretending for a moment that speculated customer announcement does occur, what is entirely unknown is pricing power of such a solution in this circumstance
*edit mmbg, yes, you are a bit kinder to GG than me, forward looking vs looking somewhere that isn't and/or wont or might be.
Anybody can say big fuzzy forward looking things, punctuate it with adequate vagaries, have coffee with David Byrne in a mall in Texas, and call themselves a visionary. The difference would be Byrne would be self-mocking, and GG self-worshiping.
I think we all know that things are changing, and will continue to, and IMO GG's "considerable" contribution is to say something to the effect of "things are changing and will continue to", something I thought was well sorted out centuries ago.
GG is a blowhard. *edit: Visions in the absence of something resembling actionable granularity are what bars and alcohol are for.
alea, at this juncture with this company in this circumstance with this CEO's stated philosophy, it is hard to imagine that is not what they are thinking (a signf sale closely coupled).
lacking, of course, is track record. track record on reorganization and investor communications is good. a significant deal in VSC is a separate matter, one I suspect bs is keenly aware.
re-reviewing the financials, on the expenses side, Q4 to Q1 saw more change with respect to SGA and RD than i initially appreciated.
It's not just talk, it shows up (so far).
finally, you can bet your bottom dollar that the CTO (GK) is not wandering around the water cooler thinking about how cool some new toy might be. IMO GK is all on VSC, and VSC (IMO) just went through a "code freeze" or whatever it is that software people do, and bs said 'well if we are in code freeze, we have a release date'. Accountability.
I suspect, but do not know, that Wave has a CTO and engineers that are seriously doing more than 40hr weeks and doing so wiith some fire, a moral/excitement/enthusiasm point I was beating the second this scrambls thing came up.
scrambls may well have value, but IMO that is a coincidence, scrambls at the time betrayed a lack of discipline, fodder for poor moral, and a vehicle to dilution.
alea, on a point previously kicked around,
it looks, to me, like the guesses that you and then I were tossing around regarding the notion that VSC release may be closely coupled to a significant initial order (we kicked around 60/40 etc) continue to indicate as such.
given the evidence to date (meager I know, we are talking new mgnt being employed in this capacity for little more than half a year) it seems that perhaps they are seeking to couple the words "launch" and "sale" as tightly as possible.
given the history of launches, a launch itself is an exercise in wguf, and my sniff meter tells me this guy gets that.
I'm going all-in and raising my guess that a significant 8k-able VSC transaction occurs within 4 weeks of launch to 67%.
I can't believe I said that.
Blue, I prefer my crow cold with lots of rooster sauce.
player, exactly, the new CEO is saying something to the effect of:
(speaking as bs here) 'in case you thought I was being vague, providing escape clauses, or otherwise playing three hands at once, or in case you are accustomed to a whole load of manure masquerading as forward statements .... my statements were none of the above, this is what is: The release date is July 22, in print, on marketwire, I cannot be more plain or transparent than that, Judge me.'
Again, i think this is more like a deliberate, considered, ethically transparent plan as oppose to a "distortion - deception" as Blue recently held to.
Blue's general position of prove it is a reasonable one. We all choose what to measure in the end.
I thought the big dilution prior to the SHM was a solid move, said so then and said why then, and ... if I didn't know better ... BS stole my talking points on why to do it then.
This is a solid process. Results in the end or not, the process is solid. I can see how NB is suddenly remarking 'we should have fired SKS 5 years ago'.
Fear of change has not treated Wave investors well, and the irony is, Wave depends on customers standing up to a fear of change in platform ID methodology.
alea, "but he struggled to restrain himself when engaging reality"
charitable.
Having for a period championed the "exuberance" fig leaf in the face of Blue's more true 'lying scum', I am rather personally familiar with charitable posturing.
The Trustzone PR (or whatever it was) was an essay in ; wash-rinse-repeat.
Switching topics: given the vote of no confidence in NB and GG and the hollering for heads on that, I'm inclined to think BS has won over NB (my opinion as to whether GG is capable of recognizing empirical fact posted elsewhere) and that it may well be that BS and/or any of the other BoD members are perfectly happy to have NB around.
Maybe they guy brings something to the table. He does seem to have a quirky mind, which can be a good thing once disarmed of its ability to perpetuate badness.
Don't know what it is about GG, but I have never - even way back when - found value there.
yes, and products were tested and indeed deployed for individual partner BP, but I am disinclined to reference that as "scalable".
This notion weighs more on the question of whether 1 contract can become 3 and then 10 versus whether 1 contract can become another contract and then another contract.
Certainly ANY significant contract would be a good thing (runway) and there has been muttering about discussions/arrangements for outsiders to be cut-in should demand exceed deployment resources.
Overall it looks promising. Perhaps it is just a conditioned response on my part.
On the other point I'm not sure there are many options for MS to consider should Win7 VSC fly. There is the obvious t.o. notion in order to grab the customers until they can figure a way for win8 to stick as opposed to allowing customers to establish on a viable alternative prior to win8 adoption.
alea, caution stems from a concern that the new guy could get blindsided. Enough technical things have been papered over to built a parade float. He undoubtedly has sought to get to the truth on what is, what works, what needs work, and what wont work. But I am going to hazard a guess that technical details are not his forte. Presumably GK (CTO) has his ducks in a row, in which case mine is nervous nellie hand-wringing.
But, to the best of my knowledge, nobody, no company, no product, anywhere in this knowd universe has ever scalably "leveraged the installed base" ... the successes I am aware of have included hardware replacement.
It would be nice if there was just one example.
At least Rivetz is off to the races planning to leverage the 200m installed base of Trustzone, product launch Q4 2014, mark your calendar.
yes, the comments indicated that Win7 was out of the woods,
but the source ...., this was the CC focused mostly on the achievability of top line 60m even without flood SEDs and and 10 WEM deals was "absolutely" reasonable ...., so Win7 vs say WinXP ease might be overstated, so until I see a even single event involving the leveraging of "installed base" I will maintain some concern over scalability.
NW, looking back a bit I found this from a CC where a caller was asking about this (in reference to previous CCs as memory serves), SKS seems to indicate that the issue is solved or not an issue, but I'm in the 'where's there is smoke there is fire (Really big really bad fire) re:anything from 'bad' from then. in any event this is an exchange representative of my biosy concern:
Q4 2011 CC 3/28/2012
: Right. That leads me to my last question. Has the [indiscernible] (80:14) successful in working with the OEMs to develop a process to turn on their legacy TPMs in the old machines? So those 500 million that don’t have TPMs turned on and cannot be done without physically turning each one of them on and how hard is it to activate and refresh the BIOS in each machine before the TPMs are activated? In other words, all those problems solved yet?
: They’ve been – most of them have solved for a while. The reality is that the earliest TPMs were shipped turned off for a variety of different reasons. Really, in the course of the last Windows 7 operating system, most of the TPMs are powered on but not enabled yet. Enabling can be done just purely through software. And as we move to Windows 8, it’s fully automated. You just – your bank account will reach down, if your TPMs turned off it will help you turn it on.
(the caller is clearly referencing a problem with TPMs, bios, bios refresh etc that SKS kinda brushes away, and the caller didn't just start making stuff up IMO)
I'm still getting my head around the apparent fact that a message board swung 6 million WAVX votes away from BoD members GG and NB. Considering a total of around 11 million votes cast ... well, that's somethin'.
It certainly raises some ire in me that a few personalities can master so many sheep (sorry folks, it was really ONE voice that kept it from happening a year earlier) as to maintain that status quo on Wave BoD support for so long.
People would be well served to consider the plurality of opinions regarding Wave Systems in how they exercise their limited powers via WAVX proxy.
yea, release dates in software are missed with absolute regularity, to the point of it being the norm. But with tens of billions in revenue, MSFT e.g. can afford to bump it a quarter, and then again, and again. Wave enjoys no such luxury. Dude has cajones, or lacks first hand familiarity with software release delays, or it's is essentially done.
They could "launch" in any event I suppose, it's not like it hits the shelves in boxes at Bestbuy or anything like that. Again, I don't think a faux-launch and patch routine would serve them well.
In any event, the calendar has been marked, which IMO fits more into a deliberate, measurable and transparent effort than it does "distortion and deception". At least so far.
Blue "why would anyone sign up for more distortion, deception and debt under the same leadership"
first I am assuming you are using the words debt and dilution interchangeably (a tad sloppy).
Given that the new management has said all along that the observable reportable results of their turnaround effort will not be apparent until the second half of 2014, it seems the use of the words "distortion" and "deception" is a bit adventurous.
Should Dec 31 2014 arrive without observable reportable evidence of turnaround, then hats off to you for your prescience.
From my seat their plan requires such results by that time.
We can of course quibble as events unfold in the next 6 months about whether events constitute deception and distortion vs significant results ala turnaround, but the stated measurement window has not yet begun ... much less concluded.
Certainly (IMO) quibbling about events in the next 6 months and what the constitute would be a good thing, the first of those a mere 3 weeks away, providing every opportunity for management to fail to meet a stated deadline. I'm a bit surprised they they drew such a defined line on a VSC v2 launch.
It will be interesting to see how the conversation shapes up if July 22nd (or 18th or 25th depending on how you look at it) passes without a VSC v2 launch PR.
NW,nice insights. On the WEM thingy,
my bringing up WEM was not to explore WEM but to use WEM as for what I consider the only example of Wave trying to do what they are trying to do with VSC.
WEM went like this:
1. Wave develops new solution for APTs. (WEM)
2. Wave enters into significant pre-launch trials with WEM.
3. The bright future of WEM is highlighted as being able to leverage the massive installed base of TPM machines.
4. The effort becomes measurable through 10Q reports under a government contracts services item.
5. Over the course of a year Wave successfully earns the contract amount. It is done incrementally, platform by platform
6. Concurrent CCs indicated that the massive installed base of TPMs affording rapid scalability is really not so simple. The installed base is perhaps only marginally standards compliant, has software stacks that were never used and simply don't work, that peculiarities between various BIOS and TPMs and TSSs made it a platform by flatform effort.
the take home message? The notion that there is a functional massive installed base of TPMs is flawed. There is a massive clunky non-uniform never-used-for-anything often-doesn't-work nightmare of various TCG ideas that are entirely beta or pre-beta at best.
Now, on to VSC (cut and paste WEM outline, replace letters).
1. Wave develops new solution for device ID. (VSC)
2. Wave enters into significant pre-launch trials with VSC.
3. The bright future of VSCis highlighted as being able to leverage the massive installed base of TPM machines.
4. no data
5. no data
6. (feared>>)Concurrent CCs indicated that the massive installed base of TPMS affording rapid scalability is really not so simple. The installed base is perhaps only marginally standards compliant, has software stacks that were never used and simply don't work, that peculiarities between various BIOS and TPMs and TSSs made it a platform by flatform effort.
So my point in bringing up WEM is that it represents the only time Wave has ever attempted to leverage the phantom installed base.
GM? no, complete hardware replacement
BASF? ditto
BP? ditto
The central argument to VSC is thatit can be done without a hardware complement (or, as it looks like from the WEM effort, a complete hardware refresh) as the installed base is too funky to afford scalability.
Perhaps this is what you were referring to with your WEM comments, that the exact nature of the WEM difficulties may have more to do with WEM than the installed base, but the last guy sold it as issues with the installed base, and there is no demonstrated success that I am aware of by anybody to leverage that installed base (unless e.g. one considers Pwc that way although as memory serves it was rollout out in tandom with a rolling hardware refresh).
The VSC plan depends on a functional installed hardware base. Is there one?
NW, competition,
Solms did indicate that he sees an opportunity in VSC but that he anticipates significant competition on the coattails of any demonstrated Wave success. Indeed, on PP allocation (burn, a few engineers, marketing and cushion) he indicated the marketing would be purposed towards leveraging any head start Wave enjoys in VSC. Close a few deals and then amplify the brand awareness as quickly as possible is how I read that. He indicated it would not be just advertising but declined to pout more color on that. It seems he would like to run it across the techguru space upon success, but is not interested in the pay-to-play product review circuit. Certainly one could imagine Intercede as a competing vendor, it is what they do, perhaps it being more sensible to refer to them as an incumbent, with Wave as the new entrant into VSC and not vice versa.
I'm concerned about any gap between perceived TPM installed base and sell-to functional TPM installed base.
Certainly in WEM thingy Wave experienced what appeared to be significant hardship with the mutliple flavors and characteristics of legacy bios, and it seemed that may have extended to TPM versions and characteristics, or that while hte chip was there is was not effectively addressable (from a COTS perspective at least). This might influence scalability, and cut into the hardware saving notion. If so, at what point, that is, if 5% of a companies seats can't carry the water, is replacement of those tolerable?
Considering that much of the VSC application (or at least presumably) would be for remote VPN access, and given the potential for this to be through BYOD machines (BYOD laptops or home PCs) - machines that are made ready by tacking on a dongle, the question is does Wave reasonably expect the preponderance of those machines to be even eligible for their solution?
Wave's significant sales in the past have relied on complete platform replacement to SED+TPM machines. Any notion of platform replacement is a hand grenade in the face of the "no hardware costs" idea.