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but I was talking revs and it seems you are talking billings,
but I would still be impressed with billings of 8.
root, better than 8 would be
astounding considering that Q3 had a rare event accelerated large maintenance component which provided the bulk of the previous uptick.
Your comments do reflect my notion that folks are likely to be shocked (new share count) and disappointed (revs).
MY guess was :
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=98155657
tkc's response was a bit more bullish.
I remember when Frankenburg was appointed, and I thought ...finally ... and then nothing seemed to happen. Much later the shareholders actually gave thumbs down to one, and within 6 months it seems Frankenburg and Bagalay spearheaded the ousting of SKS.
Hats off to those who voted shares sensibly (regardless of whether the no confidence was placed on the correct BoD member) along with those who have been trying to effect such change through proxy for years.
As mentioned elsewhere, Frankenburg + Bagalay + Solms + the new outsiders = an end to the dizzy paradigm misty horizons puke that feigned business.
Riveting.
While I expect many to be startled (new share count) or disappointed (less than impressive sales growth) by the coming Q report, at least on the surface it seems the BAU concerns are being systematically addressed.
according the the whisperwire or otherwise
SKS gone - check
MS gone - check
scrambls mothballed - check
BoD alternatively populated - check
oodles of pathetic trade show whispers and scoops gone? - check
and FWIW, the BoD now has enough folks on it that if one were to get voted off, they would presumably be gone.
Given the climate (IT security that is), Wave's position (device authentication, attestation, SED and other such DLP), and visible signs of a serious effort to turnaround it would seem this company is a balance sheet and a cash-flow statement away from qualifying for speculative investment by a lot of folks who for a long time knew better than to touch the thing.
It is the sort of thing that can (with managed expenses and growing sales) easily migrate towards the SP to the 5-15x sales that many companies enjoy as they migrate towards CFBE and beyond. (That is, once equity financing of day to day operations is part of the past).
tkc, I went a little more flat
on cost cutting figuring some costs cut, others added.
Billings is a crap shoot, they had accelerated large maintenance Q3, but perhaps with aggressive sales they can move the window to the left on pending things again in Q4.
Q1 should retire the costs for factoring, but Q4 will still carry some of that.
It remains to be seen if dell has actually flattened.
Your numbers would be pretty impressive IMO should they come to pass.
Another thought is whether Solms is more aggressive about billing srvs, I get the impression SKS preferred to give such things away in the name of flags.
Still hard for me to imagine much of a seismic shift in the books in Q4 ... action in Q4 can only partially show up then at best.
So, seeing that it is soon that time:
revs $6.6m, exp $8.9 (excl SKS)
loss 2.3m
billings?, cash?, ATM? ...
perhaps Samsung shows up in Q2 #s
(revs: dell 3, other lic 3.1, srvs 0.5)
SKS et al takes the loss to as much as 4m.
expat, on this:
The point is to shutter money losing operations that are a cash drain on the company with little to no hope of profitability.
The evidence to me is that is exactly what is going on, and my assumption is that it is being done in the most rapid AND thrifty manner possible.
There only seems to be some debate about the relationship between rapid and thrifty.
Scrambls seems to have disappeared from the Wave site, SKS is now the CEO of Rivetz.
While this is just whisperwire it seems to me it carries implied content consistent with your stated point:
"I asked about the ongoing viability of projects like Scrambls and E-Sign. The answer was they are laser focused on pursuing the business which will reward the bottom line and shareholder value. No further details." Last year it would have been a yarn about potential, market opportunity, discussions with enterprises, pending contracts, and so on (and coolness, lots of coolness).
I look forward an update on restructuring efforts the week after next.
1. Did the company take a one-time charge for SKS' severance?(this has scrambls implications IMO)
2. ATM
3. Balance sheet.
4. Cash flow.
PS, and heck, if they want to give guidance on, e.g. Dell or Samsung going forward, I might even take notes this time.
alea, yes, the conflict is really awful,
representing the shareholders (BoD seat) to negotiate the transfer of company property (scrambls) to himself (Rivetz).
Surely even (a/r)wk in the default condition of worship and awe can see a problem with this.
A few bad arguments do not add up to a good argument.
It seems the long held notion that some sort of near term bottom line savings is to be had is a bad argument.
So now it needs to be done for some sort of perception thing.
Employee appraisal and the consequences of that appraisal are generally handled in a somewhat confidential manner. It is the way professionals generally run companies. There are exceptions: CEO, CFO, CTO these types ... and while MS has held any variety of inflated titles the fact is he is tier two.
So, in order to clean up perceptions and get all professional Solms needs to do something public with a VP to satisfy some wavoids ... to bring a sense of respectability to the company. Tabloid vendetta masquerading as new found professionalism.
Strikes me as bad argument number two.
Bad + bad doesn't equal good it equals double bad.
ExP, I really have no idea,
But in terms of the impact on the Q4 numbers, I believe a ceremonial axing of the scrambls staff - which I generally peg a 5 people with a monthly budget of 150k a month in its heyday - would cost at least 10 times that, with the lions share going to MS.
I believe, with little or no evidence, that the plan is to get rid of scrambls as an expense, and suspect that such has mostly already been done.
The quarterly report provides the perfect opportunity for the CEO to communicate on this matter. He was appointed in October and asked about these matters in November. The quarter ended in December and while some lament the presence of anything Sprague, others (myself) are basically sick of words --- I want numbers.
The money manager folks I speak to couldn't give a flying monkey if Wave circled a Blimp and bought all the neon billboards in Hong Kong declaring MS was fired. They want numbers, firing him impacts numbers, show the numbers.
As it is the first Q report under the new CEO, it would seem robbing peter to pay paul (delaying firing somebody if indeed that is the correct thing to do) in order to provide a better near term balance sheet is the better course of action. The goal is to give the impression/demonstration of a turnaround ... a NUMERICAL one, not one based on names on business cards.
I find the obsession with a public dismissal of MS to be irrational. I find the arguments that it provides anything resembling near term financial health to be weak. Given that the goal is near term financial health it seems to me anything else is simply irrational.
I have no idea the actual worth of any of these people and whether reassignment or firing is the best course on a case by case basis.
MS may we a well-liked highly respected capable person within Wave, same goes with the rest of the scrambls staff (IE aside). Solms did say he wanted to clean up the clunkiness of some of Wave's core offerings, so does one bring in new blood (hiring costs) to replace old blood (firing costs)[=costs x 2] or does one do what many have said "refocus on core business" by reassigning to core business.
It seems claiming BAU without a quarterly report in hand for the first quarter of business to which the BAU claim is directed is irrational.
I've pretty much beaten the crap out of a rather dead horse on this.
Week after next should provide some information. Among the things will be whether Wave has been able to improve its accounting to the point where they can reflect on business segments. I honestly think they may well have genrally just guessed in the past with these "100k for scrambls" things and that task were likely very vaguely defined.
I also think some of the ATM activity we've seen and the hidden costs player referred to are simply a matter of the facts that probably every single employee at Wave costs money to fire.
exp, it is not black and white,
"dwarfs" a months pay most certainly. But having to take the hit in Q4 that you and blue were calling for (figure at least a years salary plus picking up COBRA for a while) would not qualify for "cause' I'm afraid to say.
Blue, you position versus mine requires this
statement of yours to be true:
"This would address the unsavory public perception, as well as cutting unnecessary expenses--thus, improving the bottom line or what I carelessly labeled as "the balance sheet."
You seem unwilling to accept that some restructuring, including firing people, has costs. Those costs must be realized.
I believe it is more important NOW to put forward the best looking quarterly report possible, essentially a report card of the new CEO's first Q at the job.
Your suggested restructuring will not improve the books to be reported, they will worsen the books to be reported. Build that fact into your argument. Acknowledge that fact in your communication to me and I will be more inclined to accept the notion you argue from a rational instead of feel good perspective. But any argument that does not begin with "Take the immediate hit to the bottom line ..." is not based in reason. Long term what you say may be true, but near term one either chooses to incur a particular restructuring cost that hurts the bottom line now, or they choose to do it at a different time. You must get your head around the fact that firing a Sprague involves writing a big check, a bigger check that one otherwise pays .... Or are you of the persuasion that Sprague family members don't have nice contracts with, say, accrued annual leave (over 10 years of it ....)? If you believe what you say and they are a filthy lot, is it not then incumbent to assume they have filthy contracts? Rational restructuring involves choosing when to incur particular restructuring costs. You ignore that. You see only savings. Count the beans.
I prioritize the next numbers in the next quarterly report above the broad perceptions to which you speak. Solms has no business accommodating past pain, his job is to make good decisions today. He's not a therapist, he is a CEO. I share the perception concerns you have, but the people I talk to who's job it is is to invest other peoples money and who long told me they will not put at penny in Wave (people that know more than you or I know about computer security AND financial security ) will now look at Wave. Quite simply, Wave has fired the baboon, now they want to see a couple of quarters hit the books and look over what the new guy has done. They are not expressly concerned about whether every Sprague has or has not been fired. They now want to see a couple quarters of books.
Blue, no.
The balance sheet shows, among other things, how much money you have ... it will be reported in a couple of weeks.
Whatever number they show for cash (part of the balance sheet) subtract a couple of million dollars from it.
Compare the two sheets.
The one with the smaller amount of cash with all else being equal is in worse shape.
Severance costs money and any such costs incurred in Q4 are due to be reported in a couple of weeks.
This assertion "Getting rid of non-performing ... people would help ... the balance sheet" is very likely very false as it pertains to the balance sheet to be reported in a couple of weeks.
Less is not more, more is not less. I am familiar with your aversion to beans, but your declarations of "obvious" and impact on the balance sheet seem haphazard.
Change is a process best done in a rational order. Hopefully Wave is doing things in a rational order instead of a "obvious" feel good order.
I, e.g., think the appearance of the balance sheet (the next balance sheet, the one that reports Q4) is very very important. That balance sheet is the one they gets reported next, not the ye 2014 (or 2015 etc) balance sheet. The ye 2014 balance sheet would show the benefits of what you speak. Your argument is to act now to feel good, harm the Q4 balance sheet that comes out in two weeks so that the balance sheet a year from now looks better.
I believe that is doing things in the wrong order.
If the company was on sound footing heading into this then sure, act immediately, make a show of things. But that was not the case.
I haven't seen very convincing evidence that the erosion of Dell income has abated. If that is the case then new sales may simply offset declining OEM bundling revs, and of course as alea implied it would be nice to retire the factoring facility which essentially diminishes that revenue stream even further. The ATM goal would be working capital PLUS catching up the AP and blanking out the factoring thingy. And heck, losing the going concern thingy would seem to be important. Buying a three year maintenance contract from a company that KMPG says might not be around in one year could easily block some sales.
NW, bothersome indeed, but when one factors in the discount and warrants that have generally been observed, I'm inclined to think this path leads to less dilution than a big grand slam PP and FWIW allows current unqualified investors to participate at the level of their choosing.
alea, I was thinking that
the going concern thing would be 13-15m, but for no particular reason other than looking at ttm cash flow. I have no idea what an accountant needs to see to vacate a going concern statement.
I'm inclined to think they don't stand a chance getting going concern off of 2013 annual report, in which case improved cf going forward would presumably lower the threshold and hence dilution requirement.
One could easily imagine that there are customers who in their own due diligence (I'm trying to use the words DD the way the rest of the world outside of WAVX does) would simply not as a matter of policy buy IT infrastructure from companies with going concern statements.
NW, I acknowledge that prior printing at lower prices could easily afforded the supply for the volume in question, the question for me is more one of whether the treasury feels satisfied, because if it is not it seems it would step into volume like that.
Previously there has been little other explanation for the supply, but I agree that at this point supply north of ~1.10 can be pretty easily explained.
basically ramsey provides a much more coherent version of what I think is on this:
Consider though there are two bundling scenarios:
1. Chip bundling where the Samsung TPM chip is used by device OEMs such as PCs. Chips is how Wave bundling started and it's been so long I've forgotten who all the chip makers are (some are still shipping), but the royalty for this is pennies per chip.
2. Bundling with PCs such as Dell. This is the .25 to 1.00 SKS discussed.
With Samsung the bundling can take two forms:
1. Samsung TPM chips used by PC and tablet OEMs such as Dell, HP, Samsung etc. (pennies per chip).
2. Samsung devices such as PCs and tablets (.25-1.00 per device). In that case I assume two royalties would be generated; one for the Samsung chip on the Samsung device and another for the Samsung device itself.
Hopefully Samsung develops a TPM for smartphones with Wave bundled which I doubt would be more than $.25 royalty per device (probably less imo) such as shipping on Samsung smartphones. The bigger importance for Wave than the royalty would be the ability to offer enterprise trusted computing solutions such as Wave VSC and WEM on smartphones so that these can be deployed on all enterprise network access devices not just today's PCs and tablets.
[and]
I believe the Wave royalty (pennies) per Samsung TPM chip is guaranteed for each chip shipped and is paid by Samsung, but it could be the software suite bundling (.25-1.00) is optional to and paid by the device OEM? Obviously when Samsung is the device OEM (e.g. Samsung PCs and tablets) the software suite will be included and an additional royalty paid.
[from the PR: ]
Supported on Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP, Samsung's TPM security chip is available to all original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and is compatible to configurations shipping on all business-class systems. Under the agreement, Wave's EMBASSY® Security Center (ESC) - Samsung Edition, TPM Software Stack ("TSS"), EMBASSY® Trusted Suite (ETS) - Samsung Edition, and EMBASSY® Security Center (ESC) Pro - Samsung Edition will be available for distribution.
This begs the question: Did the ATM step in to provide the 2m shares of supply this morning.
wavey, my lay interpretation is that,
yes, Wave and Samsung had a development agreement and so on, that it looked like Wave was going to be Samsungs go-to on TPM matters.
Wave has built various software stack/interfaces to run on BRCMs ATMLs etc chips, and as Samsung decided to go into this business they decided to have Wave develop the requisite software.
Samsung has now completed development and is shipping these things. Historically much of this business has gone to Infineon and BRCM where Wave has enjoyed some royalties from BRCM.
My guess would be Wave might get a dime a chip for the lowest level stuff and more in instances where additional components are bundled.
But previously it was a development agreement, this is a product that will generate revenues, pennies per chip at the lowest level deployment, and while I don't keep up on the Infineon thing, presumably Samsung will become the dominant supplier of this hardware and the associated software will be provided by Wave.
This is some of the massive expense buildup of the last few years, it will take a long time at pennies a chip to recover the investments, but it does lay the groundwork for sales on top of the basic installation.
It is a positive development.
tkc, yes, but ultimately if one accepts the ATM has been running hot,
then one must account for the added shares, somewhere there need be considerable net buying.
If one assumes 250k as normal daily share volume then an additional 14m shares have moved since Jan 6. One could cut that in half with the Nasdaq double count notion, 7m shares. One could then cut that in half again and assign it to momo traders, 3.5m shares. It seems that with known cash-flow coupled to whisper wire notions that one could reasonably speculate that the ATM has printed at least 3.5m shares. Perhaps not, but if they have it is difficult to simply slip them into regular laundry. Similarly, one cannot explain it away as some sort of arranged strategic buyer thingy (too many shares, one needs to see a filing).
So, I am going with the idea that Feeney or Collins have lined up the usual folks and have persuaded them to absorb the ATM in the 80-95 cent range. Every few weeks the ATM steps out of the way to book a day over a buck for listing purposes.
My point is mostly about throwing water on any sort of significant or strategic buy-in stuff (although it does tease up the froth that gets wavoids to back up the truck 'one last time').
wavey, it looks like you are correct,
Schedule 13D to report 5% ownership,
http://www.sec.gov/answers/sched13.htm
Form 3 to report insider ownership or 10% ownership
http://www.sec.gov/about/forms/form3data.pdf
-- 5% of Wave ~1.75-2 million shares, it would seem to me that vacates the notion of some sort of single big entity buying into Wave. There are rules, the rules say file these things, EDGAR shows no such things. Now, there is the 10 day grace and perhaps there is some processing time, I do not know.
but at first blush I am going with occam's razor:
Wave has printed millions of shares in the past without any strategic or significant buy-in,
there is no obligatory filing to indicate this is any different,
so this is probably not any different.
Trustonic partners for trustlet managment,
so, what looks like the old E2100 applet/truslet ecosystem seems to have sprouted in Korea:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ils-sponsors-new-technology-center-at-southwest-tennessee-community-college-2013-02-19?reflink=MW_news_stmp
Some with more permanent optimism see mega billions for Wave in this space owing to their considerable experience and technology in E2100 and app manamgemnt development.
I see a catch, largely based on stuff alea has often said ... the partner to Trustonic is SK Telecom, and alea has long argued that the MNOs are not going to peacefully have the likes of Wave jump into their space and be the trustlet/applet manager (at least I think that was among alea's points).
Watch this space.
Blue, I get all that,
I'm just saying that since it has been going on for a while (presumably) and if one tallies the volume, that if one was talking a single entity, then we should have seen or be seeing a Form 3 very shortly.
In the absence of a Form 3, this activity requires multiple buyers.
I wasn't saying WAVX is or is not a good investment, I was simply saying the activity we have observed does not IMO require or entail that the participants are necessarily "pretty big"
If somebody was accumulating 10% of a Russel 2000 company then yes, but to accumulate 10% of an uber-micro-cap like WAVX would seem to have a pool of potential buyers that measure in the millions of suitors (quite literally), no "pretty big" requirements at all.
This is more like buying into an ice-cream truck than buying into a cruise ship.
Blue, why say "pretty big"?
I agree it certainly seems to all be pretty orderly, it appears like very steady ATM printing coupled to a willing buyer and the obligatory close over a buck every few weeks.
But the whole thing has an mcap of around $35m, that is bigger than me, so its all relative, but it seems anybody with anything resembling a reasonable amount of venture capital could afford the $5-10m in extra supply that may have been printed.
Presumably the buyer(s) and Wave are working together under some sort of agreement. My understanding is that would be legal. It is effectively a PP at-the-market without disclosing the event (until the quarterly ..., or beneficial ownership levels are eclipsed).
10% of wave is 3.5-4m shares so if a single buyer has been participating it would seem Form 3 should have been filed by now. One must file Form 3 within 10 days of becoming a 10% owner.
To me the lack of a filing in the face of the persistent volume is more consistent with Wave simply finding numerous buyers similar to a collection of qualified investors in a PP.
But it is odd, and it has been going on for some time now.
wavey,fwiw I would be inclined to think
it would be Feeney not Solms lining up interest. The remark Solms made about the pipeline and 'my CFO needs to know what the pipeline means' or something to that effect indicated to me that the inside look at the fiscal train-wreck of the last couple years may be one of Feeney be required to operate with a pair of SKS' rose-tinted glasses on and that he may well have wanted to, e.g., PIPE when many included my cat were expecting it.
Much of my doughnut hole thesis was to suggest that a PIPE was near, because any fool could look at the cash flow, the SP, and see that it would be best to fund at $2.5-3/share. I never thought in the doughnut whole thesis that they would simply run the train off the cliff and then fund afterwards at 80 cents a share.
Solms' comment leads me towards the notion that Feeney may have been pulling his hair out with SKS at the helm. With a more sober pipeline, more stable cost structure and so on, I am inclined to think that Feeney has ample contacts to line up interest with the pitch of "the lunatic is gone".
..... or .... Solms has corporate ties that are taking a strategic interest as NW seems to postulate.
NW, so are you saying
Solms would explore the t.o. tech-capital-market to find a fair market value and move from there?
That is a bit different than speculating about global market size, adding a zero, taking a 110% cut and calling it an asset.
Must be strange for Feeney these days, calculators once again being allowed into the CFO's office.
logo: Wave Systems 2014 - Doin' Math
Assumptions and guesses certainly outnumber anything resembling facts ... so here's some more ... and was a guestimate of mine some time ago that I dumped but am dusting off ...
Perhaps Solms is looking for a way to turn scrambls into SKS' severance. As wildman put it:
"A wild guess....Sks was given some time to do something with Scrambles...in exchange for deferring his severance."
as it seems the DDers have spotted SKS at a venture capital thingy in the West. I and others kicked around the notion some time ago that if scrambls was worth spit then SKS should be able to find a vc, give himself and Michael some founders shares, give Wave a piece, sell a piece to the VCs and be off with it. Wave has sunk a couple million into it, it is currently their property. Solms said flat out that they are in talks with SKS to try to get creative with his severance, but also indicated they are bracing to chagre it off in Q4 if that is the way the chips fall.
Certainly SKS wants 51% (does $1m and change buy him that?) and Wave would like to see reasonable return on its investment, so Wave keeps some chunk of the remaining 49% with the VCs buying the rest with their buy-in establishing a theoretical market value to the asset. Should some sort of product actually emerge for e.g. business clients then scrambls would presumably want to cross-market and so on, but I am not too sure I would want SKS within a million miles of a potential Wave customer. Him telling customers they are stupid and then comparing TPM management to garage door openers that keep the wife happy is too rich for my blood.
The point?? The Q4 report will have to shed light on a number of issues, not the least of which are things that cost a 100k+ a month without even a notion of a product short of some general reference to coolness and being able to post encrypted content or otherwise leverage the "public internet" or cloud. Personally, I think that space is well populated with plenty of folks scrambling to scramble content and fail to see Wave's advantage.
So, if scrambls and its expenses go bye-bye (is given to SKS to do with as he pleases in exchange for SKS severance and a 15% residual ownership kept by Wave, would folks think Solms did good on that or not?
Blue, I think we agree on the value of perception,
but disagree concerning Wave's financial health. Wave is/was an anemic starving child lying in a dessert somewhere croaking out one word "food", and you seem to argue that first the child needs a bib and some napkins 'cause perception is important. Wave has a penny, it can buy food, or napkins.
Perception is important, but there is a time for food, a time for strictly cost-effective behavior, and a time for the expense of perception repair. The day of perception repair is not today. Today is about money and CFBE. The quarterly report is a day where perception and facts can be addressed, but today is not quarterly report day. Today is not the day to be pandering about coddling the wounded and legacy of Xpress etc. Today is time to survey the company, stabilize the treasury, cut costs as appropriate, and seek sales.
Your ideas about what order things should be done imply that you see Wave in considerably better financial health than I do. You basically say Solms should increase costs near term to satisfy perception and Psychic-Sprague-Drag. Wave hired Tom Conte e.g., the argument being he may be able to bring sales ... you believe the money used to hire Conte should have instead been given to Michael as severance.
Nope.
player, but I thought he
invented iTunes ...
(sorry - SKS has said some pretty special things over the years).
1260, good point and a point some bean counters have been variably trying to make.
In the face of what could have and perhaps still can be described as a serious flow crisis, one needs to be rather prudent about incurring costs near term.
Golden parachutes e.g. kick in when one is fired "without cause" with thew criteria for cause undoubtedly being rather extreme. one may have a programmer at, say, scrambls that thinks scrambls is the coolest thing since sliced bread. Tough beans, one simply retasks them to clean up "clunky" ERAS or WEM ... if they don't like it they can leave. One doesn't get parachutes for leaving, one gets these thingies for being canned.
Rain or shine, one must be think through the cost ramifications of cleaning house.
Regarding Blue's notion mthat empoyeeing such neptistic sludge is pure poison to the company I would argue that those so affected would have left a very very long time ago, we are not talking about a new thingy at Wave.
Any and every person knows, as does my bat, that Wave is/was a faux-public really basically family outfit. They knew it going in, they know it know, that a Sprague or two or three hangs around after the CEO firing suddenly transcends into a poisonous intolerable circumstance seems to be making stuff up, throwing it at a wall and figuring it makes sense.
Warhol. Psychic-Sprague-Drag. Geez.
Meanwhile 24601 posted a link to a service that seems to enable a smartphone as a CAC ... something that has come up before. I don't see what the smartphone contributes when it comes to the integrity of the logged into machine, but it does tie the login event to a hardware credential (albeit one distinct from the computer to be used).
the tech keeps moving and Wave stalled out on scrambls (IMO) and it would seem inescapable based on Solms hints that scrambls has been defunded and the staff retasked,
but hey, that's why companies have quarterly reports. If it was a meaningful division of a meaningful company I could see PRing as Expat seems to require while not requiring how it is done, but in this case a PR indicating that you retasked 4 or 5 people away from a project nobody knows about or cares about would be a bit odd.
Blue, it is all timing and speculation,
one might speculate that they believe their sales growth and treasury build to perhaps more sales growth would lead to CFBE. CFBE would be a big deal, if firing people makes CFBE unattainable, then don't do it. THEN, with cfbe in hand, fire people.
Not that nothing is happening. Berger is gone, it is likely if scrambls is to be shuttered/mothballed that it will be reported in the qtrly along with clear statements towards cash flow savings afforded by that.
*edit Blue, lets say the cost to company for MS is $15k/mo and severance is $150k ... do the math.
edit, rash is charging $150 in cash TODAY to save $15k/mo (what you save by getting rid of a paper weight (if he is). His authority to do WXP boodoggles is over with. The company needs to regain financial footing. You and I know that MS' contract is ugly, probably carry his COBRA for a year, probably a year or more salary in severance ... heavens HIS BROTHER AND DAD WROTE THE CONTRACT. It is not going to be nice to Wave. It is going to take time to get rid of these bad contracts, Wave needs to find its footing.
They had to can SKS (at enormous expense) because he was the boss and one cannot reform unless they get rid of the boss. Feeney has a a fat contract too. Rain or shine one does not rush into firing Feeney regardless of how one feels.
If you believe half of what you say then you know the Sprague et al contracts are likely expensive to unilaterally escape from.
Putting every bit of capital into the act of firing people is rash. Just tell them not to come to work if need be, but I'm afraid firing them has to wait.
So Wave PRs this:
"We have fired Peter although we are not sure what his position was."
Consistently unaddressed by those seeking a public lynching of Sprague et al by The New Wave is the fact routinely mentioned by bean counters .... Wave has NEAR TERM CASH FLOW ISSUES ... firing people has NEAR TERM CASH FLOW CONSEQUENCES.
Firing SKS cost a bundle, essenitally an ENTIRE PP TO PAY FOR IT.
Hopefully, Solms takes a sober approach to this. While he has been at Wave for a little while hopefully he is not already so vengeful that he manages poorly in some sort of smiting PSD just for the sake of it.
I, tkc, and others have repeatedly pointed out the NEAR TERM CASH FLOW CONSEQUENCES of rash behavior, surely one has a better response than WXP.
Blue, while I appreciate your thoughts,
and have worked at companies with over-indulgent under-performing families in majority control ... I wouldn't (were I to reorganize those companies) just fire everybody with a certain name. Some of them were among the companies most valuable, others not, and I am not in a position to say from here who is what at Wave.
That's the new bosses job.
I believe you closed that bit by saying that if Solms brings in significant revenue bearing deals the SP would not improve because of psychic drag.
I see, Psychic-Sprague-Drag (I think we can just call it PSD from here on out).
O.K. I'm in, I'll bet you that if Solms brings in significant revenue bearing new deals that the SP will improve significantly even in the face of PSD.
Expat, your assertions are masquerading as fact,
I am not saying your assertions are false (or true) but you pretend they are facts.
Solms was installed as the acting CEO on Oct. 8, 2013.
SO:
Fact Check:
>>>"There is a lot of speculation about how Wave is/isn't reducing expenses and how to accomplish this reduction."
It's not speculation. Read the filings, watch the ATM. We're no closer to B/E than we were two years ago. That's a fact that was confirmed in the last Quarterly results. It's indisputable.
****Oct 8 is Q4, Q4 has not reported, commentary on the new CEOs cost cutting and any impact it may or may not have on cfbe is SPECULATION. While there is scant firm information regarding ATM use during Q4 (post new CEO) its use does not equate diretly to cfbe. The argument that the treasury needs more cash to make customers happy to close deals is a separate one from cfbe.
>>> "Most of the speculation revolves around certain posters who think that it is not being done the way it should be done (their way)."
I personally don't care what way it's done. How isn't important. That it *is* done is whats important.
**** I don't know if it is or is not being done, but you DO CARE how it is done. You apparently need it to be done AND reported publicly PRIOR to the normal reporting of quarterly activity in the qtr/annual report.
>>> "Only people in Wave know what is being done and they are not talking. "
How many years have we heard this excuse? How many times have people said "You're going to be surprised", or "You're going to be made to look foolish when..."
And yet, the only ones who look foolish are the ones who've made those statements. YEARS of losses, YEARS of missed opportunity.
*** this is just jibberish, you are asserting that activity in Q4 is a fact, Q4 has not been reported, the new CEO was installed in Q4.
>>>"Does anyone know if Michael or Peter is still there?"
Yes, a call to Wave's offices confirms this, (at least the Michael part)
*** this is getting back to caring HOW it is done.
>>>"It was said that Michael was one of the best code writers that Wave had. Do you dump him just because of his last name? "
Michael could be the best code writer on the planet, but it doesn't change the fact that ALL of his projects have lost money. Tens of Millions!!! That's why he should be fired. His last name could be Gates, and it wouldn't change the fact that he's burnt through over 40 million on failed projects.
*** I have no love for the Sprague glot, but it is not the job of code writers to make money, it is the job of management to have them writing code for things that will make money, if they are told to and do write code for worthless things, then management got what it asked for ... worthless code. Again, I think the inbred cluster-f was/is a miserable state of affairs, but if he has skills, good skills, and can be told what to do, and is more familiar than the next person, then it would be cost efficient to not have to train-in somebody as it pertains to near-term cash flow (not to mention near term severance costs).
>>>"As long as Steven is on our board, he can't work against Wave. "
You're kidding right? The damage that man has done? What could he do to damage Wave more than he already has? a half a BILLION in losses. A HUGE missed opportunity.
(and it's "short sighted" not "Short sided").
*** SKS has not enjoyed my support for some time.
>>>"If you want to worry about something, worry what would happen if some or all of the board did not stand for re-election"
From your lips to gods ears. If only we were that lucky. Heaven forbid we would ever elect a shareholder friendly board.
*** beats me, certainly the board acted late, failed to govern prior to action and so on, I'm inclined to see what the annual report has to say, both the numbers and the statements regarding strategic plan. If one hires a new guy to significantly change the landscape, it would seem that declaration of "facts" regarding what that person has or has not done would sensibly wait until at least the reporting of the first Q they had the position. The FACT is, somebodies on the board won out and got SKS fired, how long have they sought that? I do not know.
Finally, Solms did say he was planning a methodical review of Wave's projects and assets and a considered modification of them. I don't recall it being said that modification would be instant ... which would again be requiring HOW it is done.
One can only fire so many people so fast before onloses the forest for the trees. People have severances, they have contacts, these things cost money, money which is in short supply, it would seem fact checking requires a quarterly report.
Samsung enhances self-encrypting drive for enterprise work
By John Breeden II
Jan 23, 2014
The Samsung 840 EVO solid state drive is already an impressive device. The company claims that simply plugging it into a computer can boost performance, even in older machines. Much of that boost is attributed to the fact that it’s a solid state drive, which is inherently faster than one with moving parts. However, there are also features like local caching that also help to make the 840 EVOs one of the quickest reading and writing files.
It's also one of the first self-encrypting drives on the market, able to protect its data from most threats using encryption, and it’s compatible with almost all professional security software.
Until now, the 840 EVO was mostly aimed at single installations. But a recent update makes the drives compatible with enterprise environments so that they can be centrally managed. Encryption keys for users can now be provided for files on each drive. Using crypto erase technology, encryption keys for large files can be adjusted in seconds, protecting data from being accessed without authentication. The keys can then be immediately reset for authorized users, cutting operation costs and raising efficiencies.
The newest security update will be installed on all future drives, and it can be added to the older drives, which were launched last August, as a flash update.
All drives also ship with the Samsung Magician 4.3 software, which manages the security features and can be used for improving drive efficiency.
The Samsung 840 EVO now offers three security types: Class 0, TCG Opal and Encrypted Drive (eDrive). While all Samsung’s SSD solutions have Class 0 encryption, enabled with a BIOS password, the new update for the 840 EVO line allows third-party companies to enhance the security management of the drives. The update also adds compatibility with Microsoft eDrive security on Windows 8 and above.
According to Samsung, the new data security upgrade was enabled and deployed through a collaboration with Wave System’s Wave Cloud and EMBASSY Remote Administration Server, which allows for products and systems to be updated securely, even if they exist in many different locations.
http://gcn.com/Articles/2014/01/23/samsung-solid-state-drive.aspx?p=1
The Samsung EVO SSD may well have been the nail ...
this is on par with other reckless speculation and I lack the time or interest to staple together the snippets that lead me here, but my assertion is this:
Wave built the Samsung EVO SSD manageability/compliance for Samsung for free. Hence there is no money PR on an item that is shipping with Wave IP. The BoD said ENOUGH and fired SKS for failure to monetize, SKS carried on about "flags", and so here they sit.
Just a reckless speculation, but I recall some serious pregnant pause followed by "seek to monetize" type of grumblings on this matter from a number of places.
NW?
So one of two things on volume,
either the ATM is satisfied with the rumored treasury building
OR
the ATM is on hold as demand has apparently dried up.
If one assigns 200k as "normal" volume then excess volume since Jan 6 is 12.6m shares. If one applies double counting notions, one is looking at 6.3m actual shares of unusual volume. One is then just left to speculate what percentage of that is represented by ATM supply.
If one gives the ATM 2/3rds of the supply, then the treasury took in around $4m, which is would soundly exceed 1 qtr burn based on mrq (Yahoo's cash-flow from operations mrq was -$2.7m).
end.
note to Bluefang: somewhere you said Solms wasn't doing the deed, something to the effect of firing everybody named Sprague and scrambls etc. that it would "Just cutting the Spragues loose would free up more than a million. " and that strikes me as a bit naive. Doing so would reduce burn in the longer terms by something like $0.1m per month and would likely cause a short term rise in burn (severance, accrued sl etc). It alters the lanscape of burn down the road, but "free up more than a million" is misplaced language.
hey tkc, some of this is certainly just normal activity, so one needs to back that out of the numbers, say 1m sh per week total normalish volume. The "new" volume or unusual volume may be around 10m Naz counted shares. I don't know much about the double counting bit, I was under the impression that represents a limit ... that at most every share get counted twice, but that it need not be the case. But if one takes 10m as new volume and splits it some 5m shares were bought. While I get the impression voids are tapped out, I think it would be foolish to underestimate a void. So I'm willing to give voids 1m shares (on both sides), momo folks a million on each side, and speculate that Wave has managed to raise $3-4m. Now back to the Id of the buyer(s)? I can't see a reason to speculate that something dramatic like Sammy is going on ... I suspect its the same folks it always has been. Folks that have played previous placements and so on with perhaps a more committed individual or two good for a couple million of the whole thing. Importantly, I am inclined to guess that this is a result of at least some credibility restoration.
Finally, as memory serves there are some out of the money placement+warrants folks that might have been talked into throwing good money after bad if after meeting with new management are willing to take a flier. They have already gotten the glory pitch from old management so they know the pitch, and might be willing to dabble a bit more if persuaded that CFBE etc will actually be considered an important business objective instead of just toyed with and scoffed at.
tkc, I would expect the interview to be more of a marketing Wave's products event than a marketing WAVX event. I can't imagine any financial stuff to be considered even in the most cursory manner. Hardware strengthened "ultra-secure" device ID etc.
I still believe the goal is to build the treasury, cut expenses, sell products and head into the Annual report able to give something resembling CFBE guidance. Then it is a short hop to the next Q report where I expect the goal will be to give some cleaned up segment reporting. The one two punch of those two items might give the transparency needed to allow folks to consider taking a flyer on this thing and investing.
Might even pry some dollars out of my stingy hands, although closing over a buck today would at least allow me to consider such thing sooner.