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I would think folks
may be just as inclined to use GAAP numbers to "mean different things".
Nothing about GAAP precludes inappropriate juxtaposition of ice picks and foreheads.
this development cuts both ways ...
sure, efforts have been made, and likely entirely successful, to make TC back-doorable
but, it seems that TC in the crudest sense can be delivered to any given door-master.
you had mentioned concerns that a perception or reality is/may be that all TC or USA-TC products were tainted, NSAed upon.
presumably China has no interest in deploying NSAed stuff.
so presumably the product can be delivered such that the Chairman is the backdoormaster, not the NSA.
So, at the enterprise level, or at the level of lets say Merkel, it seems it can be delivered where Captain Bill (Boeing) or khomeini alike can receive a product that is not NSAed, a product where they are the backdoormaster.
If so, that is largely the objective of enterprise TC in the first place, and the notion that China's TPM maker would climb in with a company well-populated with ex-DoD would argue that while there may be a taint or stench around the NSA and suspicions around TC as a proxy, that the folks who look at and build the stuff seem to beleive they can build with these parts.
Or, perhaps it is simply that the TPM-maker themself has the unique ID, and it is all built on that in which case Captain Bill and khomeini would have to figure out TPM sourcing or build their own.
Or somethnig like that.
this development cuts both ways ...
sure, efforts have been made, and likely entirely successful, to make TC back-doorable
but, it seems that TC in the crudest sense can be delivered to any given door-master.
you had mentioned concerns that a perception or reality is/may be that all TC or USA-TC products were tainted, NSAed upon.
presumably China has no interest in deploying NSAed stuff.
so presumably the product can be delivered such that the Chairman is the backdoormaster, not the NSA.
So, at the enterprise level, or at the level of lets say Merkel, it seems it can be delivered where Captain Bill (Boeing) or khomeini alike can receive a product that is not NSAed, a product where they are the backdoormaster.
If so, that is largely the objective of enterprise TC in the first place, and the notion that China's TPM maker would climb in with a company well-populated with ex-DoD would argue that while there may be a taint or stench around the NSA and suspicions around TC as a proxy, that the folks who look at and build the stuff seem to beleive they can build with these parts.
Or, perhaps it is simply that the TPM-maker themself has the unique ID, and it is all built on that in which case Captain Bill and khomeini would have to figure out TPM sourcing or build their own.
Or somethnig like that.
I was guessing 2.2m end of Q cash, the difference appears to be Dell finally doing a steeper fall-off. I had been expecting a steeper Dell drop for a few Qs, and it appears to finally have happened. The rest is all more-or-less as expected. a little bit of organic growth in SMB billings it seems, nothing to write home about.
or as R&D.
I wonder if certain employees who work in R&D for years are simply always payrolled charged as R&D, then one gets a BP sale but needs to pull a dozen of these folks off their normal development work to go install the BP sales (for a couple months) but the employees are normally part of R&D, their employee numbers essentially always xcharge as R&D ... and continue to through what I see as a COS event.
alea, thanks for the insight. Since one already burns the development on R&D it would be double billing so to speak to score that again as COS. I think I get it with past R&D as a theorhetical pre-paid asset.
My concern is not so much prior development cost, but the teams of engineers that need to be deployed to actually install the item today when it is sold today and whether that is showing up today as COS or SGA. That is not previously written off R&D, that is a current account payroll event to engineers that it looks to me is getting charged as SGA not COS.
Any guess what the cash balance is today after the $2.3m billing?
I'd hazard about $5.5-5.7m today assuming all cash up front and paid for the recent deal.
RoT, and also aware of the fact that there are impediments to selling things.
e.g., if 'partners' were approached to 'work with' Wave to overcome these impediments, it does nto seem out of this world that the 'partner' response might be, sure, we can help, we'll take you over for $150m and clear up your standing issue ... Wave brings in M&A expertise, and perhaps Wave thinks $300m is more sensible, or whatever ... point is, lots and lots of long time longs can want to win the lottery with all their heart, but as it stands it is a failing business, and one must plan and act accordingly.
I agree, I don't see a solid argument for SFND products being low margin, but they are low value and require huge volume to support an enterprise the size of Wave all of which largely goes without saying.
Personally, I am inclined to think that Wave's number historically have under reproted COS - I'm inclined to think a lot of what it took to e.g. outfit BP ended up in SGA where for me I would have rather understood it as part of COS - but I am sure there are rules to these things and they were probably followed, these things do get audited in the end.
mmbg, a muted response is to me not to stunning,
there was no PR at all,
simply an 8k-other events, and that 8k contained a whopping 30 words, greater than 20% of which where dedicated to indicating the date and the company (Wave).
Not a lot to spin a yarn from.
I'm thinking $150m under the assumption that the oustanding warrants all excercise, the cash from that goes to the buyer, and that the offer closes at something like $2.2 with about $15m in cash-back to the buyer in the form of the warrant flip (and 10 million votes or whatever it is).
Just thinking out loud.
If fitness and stature is what impedes sales,
then one can seek to pimp themselves out to partners to somehow ameliorate that truth,
or,
one can fundamentally alter one's fitness and stature.
I doubt the old regime would ever consider such heresy,
I doubt the new regime would fail to consider such notions.
Couple thoughts:
1. Does the R. stand for the same thing as in Asimov lore?
2. Am I the only one who notices mostly the M&A qualifications of the new BoDy rather than previous success at sales ramping?
Correct, the video is an ad reiterating the PR from November of 2013.
I wasn't trying to say the sale had no value,
it certainly did.
A couple $million is not chump change to Wave, and as noted by RoT, there is no record of Safend products ever having been sold at such scale ... scale is always encouraging.
On a similar note one cannot over emphasize that the Safend segment, according to reporting, operates at a profit. Wave has a rich history of segments, add-ons, and science products that never ever turn a dime.
Safend does, and is beginning to develop a real trend line. There was a valley in sales for a few Qs post aquisition under the old regime, but in the case of that segment, it seems to have turned around (for a few Qs in a row now). Perhaps this is new management. Perhaps the sale at scale is new management. We know that Safend had its hooks into a number of potentially promising areas (notably e.g. the NHS). The Safend segment running as a profitable business can only be a good thing.
The point of my post was that this is NOT the first mover/launch customer/marquee demonstratio/product validation sale that leads to follow-on sales in Wave's core offerings. Zen points out the small govt sale of VSC back in Q2, unfortunately that sale lacks all the features of scale demonstration that the product so desperately needs.
My cat and the mouse he ate both believe Wave has everything focused on winning that key VSC/ERAS sale - well almost everything focued on that, they are aparently willing and able to move a fair bit of the Safend-DLP stuff as well, which helps keep the lights on.
The sale coupled with the recent placement heklp the balance sheet, the sale for the moment improves cash-flow. My understanding is balance sheets and cash-flow etc. may be important to potential customers, so any sizable sale is a good thing.
It wasn't PRed, in the past that has seemed to add to the lag to 'news effect'.
For me, it is not the type of news that would induce investment.
It is a low value product for which a whole bunch of seats were sold for a modest amount of money. Critically, it was the sale of old technology in the commodity space, stuff that competes with Credant, SYMC, etc, etc, etc, etc.
It is not a TC/TPM Wave premium value core offering. It is not a sale that indicidates that a large customer is finally going to install something new that one could build hopes of snowball effects from, indeed, it is just the opposite, buying cheap commodity old school stuff.
Hence, no reason to suppose follow on sales, no reason to think somebody is "geting it" ... just some runway. Anything resembling Wave's paradigm happiness premium value TC stuff is sitting exactly where it was yesterday, on a very dusty shelf.
If I bought at .65 I would sell this news.
If it had been half as much money, but something that resembles new technology, e.g. VSC, I would buy this news. But it is not. Its just another instance of Wave getting a moments more survival out of a legacy product.
the problem is the things that sell don't command much of a premium, Wave's headcount has long been too big for a company that sells things at such a low price per seat.
I appreciate your demand thingy, but there is more to player's comments IMO, the VSC "launch" wasn't about standards etc creating demand, the argument was that the demand is there now, and it is an argument Solms has stuck with. He has not pointed to NIST or any of these folks on VSC, he has pointed at Wave.
Solms' blame game has not been at NSA-NIST-FIPS-HSPD etc. Solms blames Wave. Their packaging, their condition, their execution, their size.
It continues to remain to be seen (somewhat past a broadly accepted performance measument point) if Solms is correct in his speculation regarding demand for premium products (e.g. VSC/ERASc).
There was a notion of cross-selling and customer lists and such back during the b.o., such cross-selling has not been observed, but SFND continues to sell some things.
One would think that the products would sell well together, the solution that Protector and Reporter provide harmonize well with e.g. VSC, at least in my estimation, but alas VSC is wholly TPM dependent, Protector and Reporter are not.
Given that the large sales for SED managment were also not necessarilty TPM dependent, at the end of the day the side things, the things without TPMs are the few things selling.
Once again, for those scoring at home ...
the "abomination" of Safend, which has been running profitably accordng to the last few 10-Qs, and which is the only product whose trend line is up ... has sold some stuff.
Noteworthy to me: it definitely is a commodity product as indicated by Wave in the past ... 250k seats for $2.3m over a multiyear deal.
If that was getting price per seat of, say the SED deal with GM it would be over $20m.
At least they don'thave to mail discs.
geenrally it would seem the notion of using billings is an effort to see what is going on more immediately as it measures mrq activity when reported, but (not to take sides) doesn't the cash flow statement reflect that?
I personally can see value in looking at the billings number while accepting that does not equal a sales number. Billings measures gross salesperson activity which in the short term has value to me. Obviously in the intermediate and long term what that activity means needs to be accounted for (ongoing liabilties COS etc) but in Wave's case today, knowing the total of billed POs has value at least to me.
If a dude is hit by a truck and twitching on the highway I'm interested in pulse ... the effectiveness of that pulse, internal bleeding, clogged arteries, leaky valves - these all factor into a a more informed and comparable picture of the individual relative to others and as it pertains to fitness going forward ... but the dude is lying on the pavement twitching. The question for Wave isn't at the moment whether it is going to make or lose 2 cents or 12 dents in Q2 or Q3 ... the question is, does Wave have a pulse?
mmbg, fwiw, I find the post nearly worthless.
I'm not against the post, I think diary entries have value (prediction not being one), the data is certainly true, but I fail to see how it informs an investor about what to do now, and similarly fail to see when such information ever did or does. And certainly I am all for player highlighting it if so inclined, I'm with 24601 on this, player has earned such priviliges.
A similar post could be constructed for e.g. MSFT, and it would show that in the last 20 years MSFT has created a gazillon bazillion dollars of shareholder wealth ... and it is down about 7% on the year last I looked, and WAVX was down about 12%. These values have both likely changed.
So the diary of the fountain of unimaginable wealth creation versus the diary of black hole of wealth destruction "informed" to the level of mitigating losses - one lost more than the other.
Similary one could look at another black hole, e.g. NVAX that has never made a dime and never sold a product and they are up 43% on the year (not to long after yet another round of 10% dilution). (A shameless plug for NVAX).
Obviously in the case of WAVX with a cult following and a buy the IPO and then buy forever and hold forever (amid poetry of rockets and turtles equipped with swiss camping tools and vegas travel plans) the diary at least serves as a record ... but does it inform what an investor may choose to do with money today? Nah.
But the last CC sure did IMO. The last CC acknowledged clearly that the companies forcasting was broken, the intersection between Wave, VSC, and customers was misunderstood, and cash-flow was bleak. I suppose that was a diary moment of sorts as well, but more informative to me.
my omission of msft wasn't to say that msft doesn't use TPMs
blue, this may be true, or not
I don't kow how they do these things, but keep in minf that shares outstanding as broadly reproted is a trailing metric, it is largely never current.
My point: the SEC filing for the placemnt says that 5.5m shares were placed on Jan 26th, the last Q report balance sheet stated 45.9m shares for a total of 51.4 shares on Jan 26th ... and Jan 26 recorded a close of 71 cents ... which would mean a closing mcap of $36m ...
I'm not saying mcap is not or will not be an issue for Wave, jus tthat one needs to factor in the extra shares from dilution and in this particular case the clock might not have started until Jan 27h (or not), again, I just don't know exactly what their process is in determining mcap.
barge, the point of my post was in response to what seemed to me to be your dismissal of Chromebook TPM usage and its measly 2% market share in the face of the 1 billion dusty TPMs nobody cares about.
My point, the point I thought, was that TPMs are being used. Yes, there are TPMs not being used. Wave is currently pidgeon-holed into the management of TPMs that aren't being used, they currently have no play in the TPMs that are being used. Because nobody cares about the TPMs Wave is targeting does not mean that TPMs are a complete failure ... just that they are a failure for Wave.
The goal of a business is to make things people want. Google is leveraging TPMs to do that, Wave is not.
barge, it may well be just 2% of the consumer computing market, I have no idea, but it is a growing segment, to the extent that we call public school districts part of the consumer market. In that application it does not appear that the device is beging used in any way to authenticate the user, one can use any variety of BYOCs to access the student or instructor intercface of the Google Classroom. The pace of adoption of Google Classroom is rather remarkable, and while it is device agnostic in the implementations that I am familiar with, the footprint of district provided Chromebooks can only be described as very rapidly growing. Those are TPMs, and they are being used, just not as a garage door openers.
thanks alea, my fingers lacked the juice to dig that up. I too figure at this stage anything noteworthy will show up as an emal alert, the rest is just recasing mystery meat sausage.
tkc, given that I haven't taken the ttime for a good while,
... do you have a notion on Wave's current cash position?
blue, they do it aaaaalllll the time.
30 days ago saw several days scattered about with above ave volume, 31 days ago being one of those days. One could postulate that little volume bumps may represent rebuys after wash-sale rule interval of Dec tax loss selling.
Dec 12th: open 90 cents, close 88 cents, vol 337k.
RoT, could well be,
I'm taking my cue from the notion that in the past Wave had one OEM sponser (Dell) directing customers to Wave for SED management, Winmagic had none.
Now Winmagic has one such sponser (Lenovo) and Wave has none (as Dell has gone in house through aquisition).
Neither are lighting the world on fire with SED management if what your WM guy says is true.
alea, re:dell
that is how i understand it, but somewhere along the line HP was indicated as well.
NW generally seems informed on these things.
considering areasonable argument can be made that Winmagic has taken Wave's former leadership role in SED management, one must hope that the company's definition encompasses something more or other than SED management.
The fact is Wave's initial success in SED management sales (GM #1) predates Thib being with Wave, hence Wave's development of SED management tools well predates Thib. It is unclear what role he had in any of the SED successes.
alea, my understanding is the policy was officially changed, that there is no such thing as 'non-performance bonuses' at Wave any longer. That said I have no idea how the comp committe would view exec performance in 2014. My guess is Solms nil (that Solms tells the committe he seeks nil) and that Shepard will get ~100k.
Wave is in a remarkable spot right now ... some just around the corner comments from the top, the curious hiring of a 2* as a CEO assistant, continued thinning of some of the presumably highly paid old guard (e.g Thib) i.e. evidence elsewhere of roster churn, not just cutting roster.
In some ways hiring e.g. 2* is reminiscent of the buildup in front of the pastry cavity in that it would spell to an outsider that mgmt sees future requirements and the revenues to support it. It differs in that it occurs against the broader tapestry of staff reductions or in some cases staff churn.
The S3 is effective. This is the time I had pencilled in on the back of my napkin to see if more unusual material events are under way (5 weeks from filing to effective seems to be normal for Wave).
So,
If:
1. the sales impediement is fincancial stability
and
2. the shelfie is in some form designed to cure that deficiency
and
3. the cure is sufficient to effect NBDs
Then
the Q for the day is what for the cure takes ... the standard PP with warrants etc (wash-rinse-repeat) or something comparatively unusual e.g. some sort of strategic-investment thingy, a share-swappy thingy (don't worry, I don't know what a share-swappy thingy is either), etc.
And finally of course, does the NBD benefit afforded by cure outpace the costs of the cure (i.e. ROI).
The shelfie is a $15m facility. Burn is roughly $3m. Say one torches the whole shelfie in a one-off (assuming they can, 1/3rd rule stuff and all, or was that an ATM thingy or what?) Then if one assumes a 15% discount, and one assumes warrants (worst case 1:1 at PP price) then one migrates to something like 70m shares, close to 100m fully diluted.
If then one has NBDs, recurring, at cfbe levels and calls cfbe $30m/yr, and figures cfbe is worth 4x sales to the market, then when the dust settles Wave is worth $1.7 a share ($1.2 fully diluted) on a big bad one-off all-in effort.
player, based on earlier sentiments I too was thinking a delisting notice is not a non-issue, it speaks directly to the heart of the matter of financial stability with any company that has yet to demonstrate independence from equity financing for day to day operations.
It would seem to me that the circumstance is not a Solms and Shepard thing, more of a all hands thing. From my row in the peanut gallery the BoD at Wave has picked up a number of folks better prepared forth e current circumstance than the largely inactive stagnant board of the past. I would expect that the board must be looking at the situation with considerable concern and is sensibly considering ALL options well beyond wash-rinse-repeat.
Blue, primarily it is on the matter of sales, and one you flop around on, but for whatever reason you appear to abhore replacing the word "no" with the word "inadequate". It is done systematically, repeatedly, and in the face of numerous efforts by many to get you up to speen on the difference between none and not enough.
This statement of yours seems to serve as a strong attractor, one you migrate back to whenever rhetoric presents an opportunity:
You said: "I didn't argue whether it was a big sale or a little sale. My position is there are no sales--big or small--during a reasonable (IMO) time period to have at least one or more." [it is safe to say you a flopped around on that]
as far as the rest of this "discussion"
On financial stability obstacle:
1. You said: “You have a need. I have a product that satisfies that need. I sell you the product. End of a happy story. I believe the excuses about long sales cycles, the standards enigma, the govt. hoop-jump, the lack of Wave's financial stability--and all the rest of it are just that--excuses.”
2. I said: “It seems for smaller companies what you say is true (one might suppose that constitutes some of the million$ in sales per Q they do achieve) but it would seem to me that to many who at least posture convincingly that they are specifically informed on this matter insist that larger companies do risk assessment on the vendor itself, not just an ROI/suitability of the product in a vacuum.”
3. You said: “First, GM, PwC, BP managed to do biz with Wave without it meeting any kind of fiscal stability standard at all.”
4. I said: “Q3-2009 Loss $0.4m, revenues up 260%. Q3-2014 Loss $2.7m, reveues down 32%. There is a considerable difference in those two circumstances, more than adequate to allow for the notion that in the first case Wave passed a "fiscal stability standard" and in the second case they failed same.
5. I added separately: “Of even greater concern is that both 2 and 1 might apply. It may be that nobody would buy from a company of Wave’s standing, and even if they would, they wouldn’t buy the TC Wave is selling.”
6. You said: “I don't outright reject the notion financial stability is one of the factors potential buyers look at when vetting a vendor. The part I reject is pinning the lack of sales primarily on that factor. It is a factor to be taken into account, for sure.” [I would call yours flopping around, go back to 1 above]
On pure fabrication regarding my statements:
1. I said: “What I find absurd is the basic thesis (that Wave is a failing company) and the follow on speculation (that Wave will continue to fail) can be made rather easily without reliance on false statements on matters that afford themselves to broadly accepted means of measurement.”
2. You said: "What I find absurd is the basic thesis (that Wave is a failing company)... What is truly absurd, is this statement, implying Wave is a success, or if not a success, then NOT failing.” [please advise me on how my statement implied “Wave is a success”]
3. I said (repeated): What I find absurd is the basic thesis (that Wave is a failing company) [...] can be made rather easily without reliance of false statements”
4. You Said: “Earlier we had a disagreement whether Wave was a failing company. I think it is, and you think not.” [no flip flop here, just insisting on putting words in my mouth, poor form]
On the company line and my beliefs:
1. You said: “There's nothing particularly special about Bill's timetable--except his statements are really all we have to judge Wave's progress or lack of it--besides the lack of sales. He kept reiterating that he felt he was right on schedule."
2. I said: “In the Q3 CC he said, in so many words, that they are behind schedule and that the remainder of Q4 would require exceptional results to get back on schedule.”
3. You cited (in response to my Q3 CC comment): "Bill Solms May 12, 2014 from Snackman message 32127 [Q1] … [and] Bill Solms Aug. 7, 2014 [posted by snackman message 34585] [Q2] … ."
4. I said: Correct, in Q2 he largely said they were largely on schedule. In Q3 he largely said they had largely fallen off schedule, that among other things Wave's financial condition was an impediment, and that among other things they look to finding solutions to that through their partnerships.
5. You didn’t respond. I added separately : “the recent assertion that Solms continued to indicate that Wave was “right on schedule”, a point I found remarkable as my hearing of the Q3 CC was a clear statement that Wave was officially behind schedule (clear enough for me to make “significant” modifications to my exposure), [uh, those significant modifications to my exposure were not ‘buys’].
6. You said: “Perhaps I am totally wrong, but I believe your inherent belief in Wave has over-ridden your normally accurate analysis. Right or wrong, it seems you are pretty optimistic, when the facts seem to argue the other way.” [I speak towards your content, you hallucinate about my beliefs].
7. But since you care, what I did say is this: “I’m inclined to think the truth is somewhere in between in all of these things: that the market is soft, but not nonexistent, that Wave’s standing is a significant issue but something that can be overcome albeit not without significant costs to shareholders or their expectations.”
Blue,
you say "Earlier we had a disagreement whether Wave was a failing company. I think it is, and you think not."
How is me saynig tha it is easy to show Wave is a failing company me saying Wave is not a failing company?
Read my words: It is easy to show Wave is a failing company. I simply remarked that it is easy to do without your reliance on false statements, and that your inclusion of easily observable false statements diminshes the value of your content.
You cut a sentence of mine in half to pretend I said what you claim. I corrected you on it. You are doing it again. Remakably poor form.
Blue, on your second comment I was responding to your current post
"Wave has never had a successful strategy"
and argued that bundling with a major OEM and parlaying that into significant large enterprise sales was a successful strategy, one that they managed myopically and responded to with complete fiscal irresponsibility, poor focus etc etc etc.
I was not commenting on whatever post you made a couple days earlier that you refer to where it seems you say you were saying the opposite of what you just said.
Blue, so you reject the notion that risk analyis of the vendor is a legitimate obstacle, or so it seems. Very well, the notion certainly isn't mine, but those who cite it seem to do so with some authority of experience.
Also, I think your statement reflects a disdain for bean counting. The first GM sale essenitally occured in Q4 of 2009.
Q3 2009 reported a loss of $0.4m (vs $5.6m for Q3 prior year), it reproted revenue of $4.7m (vs $1.8m a 260% increase in sales from prior year), and reported cash of $3.1m. The broad picture being one of rapidly increasing sales and toying with cfbe (with the GM sale by itself then catapulting them well past cfbe).
Q3 2014 reproted a loss of $2.1m (vs $2.8m for Q3 prior year), the loss actually worse if one takes the one time accounting change for SBC into account (more like a loss of $2.7m). Moreover Q3 2014 reproted revenuue of $4.3m (vs $6.3m a 32% decrease in sales from prior year).
So
Q3-2009 Loss $0.4m, revenues up 260%
Q3-2014 Loss $2.7m, reveues down 32%
There is a considerable difference in those two circumstances, more than adequate to allow for the notion that in the first case Wave passed a "fiscal stability standard" and in the second case they failed same.
Seriously, look at the numbers. It is night and day. Were I to try to do some sort of financial risk analysis, I would simply be unable to lump them in the same pot and use the evidence of the GM sale as evidence that current situation represents and equally fit vendor.
"I believe the excuses about long sales cycles, the standards enigma, the govt. hoop-jump, the lack of Wave's financial stability--and all the rest of it are just that--excuses. If Wave had the goods that satisfied the customers, they'd be selling, IMO."
It seems a number of presumably informed people disagree with that (I'll name board mod player for the moment).
It seems for smaller companies what you say is true (one might suppose that constitutes some of the million$ in sales per Q they do achieve) but it would seem to me that to many who at least posture convincingly that they are specifically informed on this matter insist that larger companies do risk assessment on the vendor itself, not just an ROI/suitability of the product in a vacuum.
While you may reject that, it does fit the data - a few million$ in small sales per Q (inadequate to fund a company Wave's size) and nil in the large customer category (that which is needed to support Wave as a going concern at this level).
Important to note in all of this is player can be completely correct regarding the vetting of a vendor, and it still could be the case that large enterprises don't want Wave's product. It is an obstacle, an obstacle pointed to as a matter of urgency by e.g. player ca. VSC "launch", but it may not be the only obstacle at this point. Management has more or less indicated they see it as the only significant obstacle at this point for at least some signficant transactions. Management also seems to think they can overcome this obstacle. Those two beliefs are presumably being currently tested, if either fails then one should expect dilution. It may be that dilution proves necessary to satisfy the obstacle as well ('bolster the balance sheet before we buy' notion).
As far as successful strategies, I would argue that bundling with Dell was a successful strategy, managed myopically, and converted to whimsy as fast as they could run the presses. Many of us commented on that, the divergence of revenue and expenses, the masking claims of NewBigDeals, the inevitability of dilution a.k.a. doughnut hole, but I would argue that capable managment could have parleyed Dell followed by the year of GM-BASF-BP into something of a company. That didn't seem to be a particularly important idea to the team.
Demand through standards in a nutshell:
"expecting new standards to deliver your market is an exercise in cost accumulation. "