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Since HIMMS 2015 is going on right now, had a quick look for Novaglass and saw these two videos that I hadn't seen before. In the first you will very much recognise Sphere 3D's involvement as Novarad surely prepared it together with ANY for HIMMS, the second has two nice little nuggets on Novarad and the industry from an independent interview:
1) Video by Novarad on Novaglass:
Very true. Nice summary based on something called facts and truth, and a logic that is so clear that even water gets jealous:
"The funny part is that for months the main argument of the bashers was that GlassWare didn't do anything the company claimed. So with all their supposed tech knowledge they have been completely wrong all along and anyone who takes what they say as fact should do so at their own peril."
If information helps, yes. If information is not valued then, no. At the end most of us are just at these boards to exchange ideas, findings, get questions answered, and sometimes we succeed, which makes it worth checking in...but it is always sort of entertaining...I find. Even the funny odd ball messages....
Another nice tweet from Jason Katcher today! He sure is following it closely!:
@jkatcher74: Lets hope to see some positive things from @Sphere3D in Vegas this week & into their June preso with Microsoft. http://t.co/jvrADNcHth $ANY
Yes, very worrying...put it on the private board, there all can judge by themselves...
Personally, I think this is a very realistic and actually logical step in the future.
Anyway, the technology sector exhibits nice multiples... but the amazing other two aspects in this space are: acquisitions are very frequent & premiums generous
And the more an acquisition helps potential acquirors "to catch up" and the higher the potential synergies, the higher the premiums paid...
My thoughts are that this a high growth multi billion dollar industry as we read in many industry reports:
1) Will we be the only ones? No
2) Do we have to be? No
3) Do we know that we have a unique technology validated publicly by Novarad, DELL, Pearson and MSFT? Yes
Can you name just one successful tech company that was/is truely the only one in its industry? No...??
EXACTLY
I actually think its good they took it down again and leave it as a stunning surprise. I mean, let's be objective here, literally any other tech company (even of a five times higher market cap!) just hinting at a note by MSFT would have jumbed UP in share price BIG time yesterday...
But with the current mood of the retail investors here...nothing...a few congratulatory posts on ihub but apart from that nothing...so lets save it as ammunition for later...when it actually strategically matters...am actually glad they took it down.
I mean look at the most recent announcements of MSFT and Pearson and explain the share price? Those are NOT hints, NOT just announcements by ANY, but actual open validations by MSFT and Pearson, but go figure...
Instead we read an article by an anonymous short writing articles, a guy who never came within 100 feet of Glassware, and is tweeting away from his phone and we think: "oh, oh, maybe this guy is more right about Glassware than DELL, Novarad, MSFT and Pearson"...
GO FIGURE!
Well, as we have established/ witnessed on the board a few times, some people simply dont want to wait...
As far as I am concerned, we have to let them be and wish them good luck...
Also, we don't have to kick their ass, as they will kick their own ass later anyway...
That is VERY impressive!...esp considering that Glassware is vaporware and not really an evaluated and selected tech by MICROSOFT!
They must have drugged Microsoft obviously
Exactly. We also need to be real that it is a growing small company, which by now we, the somewhat few ones who are left, are (after a painful adjustment in expectations) very realistic about by now.
I mean, before we had posts here like "I wouldnt agree to an acquisition now at $50 a share" (when the share price was one tenth of that!) "we are going to become ubiquitous, rule the entire world!" (which company or technology is really?) Lets take a little responsibility here, WE the shareholders invited the shorts!
Same as we screen for undervalued companies, the shorts screen daily through boards like these to see where there are shareholders with statements like the above. For them those are the lowest hanging fruit! To point the finger at management who have done nothing but execute as to their best ability and beyond is super easy, but at the same time when doing that three fingers point back to us (anatomically speaking)...
NOW, we are realistic if not even evidently depressed here as the share price to guidance very clearly indicates...which to my mind at least makes me very comfortable that soon the shorts will find much better targets and finally move on...
Nice, reflective post. Funny and true that! eom
Wow, check this out!: ANY's 2014 focus as per its annual filing was clearly on (copied directly from the annual filing):
New Products
During 2014, in connection with our acquisition of the V3 Systems for its VDI technology assets and our acquisition of Overland, the Company has added the following products to its data management and data protection solutions.
Virtual Desktop Management Software
The Desktop Cloud Orchestrator ® (“DCO”) provides a simple user-friendly interface for managing virtual desktop pools on Sphere 3D’s Desktop Cloud V3 Hyper-Converged Appliances for virtualized desktop infrastructures, allowing desktop administrators to quickly create, move, delete and manage desktop pools without requiring extensive knowledge of a VMWare environment. DCO significantly simplifies key tasks that a desktop administrator would need from the underlying system infrastructure built with VMware ® View, vCenter, and vSphere into one centralized console. Its key features include: (i) desktop cloud infrastructure dashboard, which provides status of key attributes of the virtual environment; (ii) optimized desktop allocation, which enables pool migration across network resources; (iii) pool management, which allows simplified pool creation and management; and (iv) diagnostics, which provide information about vital performance indicators such as BIOS, processor, memory, temperature and fan status and log file downloading capabilities.
Software-Defined Storage Software
Our RAINcloud ® OS storage software is designed for our SnapScale series of clustered scale-out data storage solutions that are optimized for cloud and distributed enterprise environments. The software includes software-defined storage services that automatically execute operational data management and data protection operations without requiring manual intervention. The data mobility tools included in RAINcloud ® OS enable customers to build private clouds for sharing and synchronizing data for anywhere, anytime access. In November 2014, RAINcloud ® OS version 4.1 was released, which included several enhancements to its access protocol with support of SMB 2.0 and NFS V4, along with other performance and security features. The new release also supported non-disruptive rolling upgrade feature that in future will allow customers to upgrade to the newer version of the software without experiencing any service downtime.
Our GuardianOS ® storage software is designed for the SnapServer ® family of entry level enterprise network attached storage (“NAS”) devices and delivers simplified data management and consolidation throughout distributed IT environments by combining cross-platform file sharing with block-level data access on a single device. The flexibility and scalability of GuardianOS ® reduces the total cost of ownership of storage infrastructures. In addition to a unified storage architecture, GuardianOS ® offers data storage scalability through features such as DynamicRAID ® , centralized storage management, and a comprehensive suite of data protection tools. Since August 2014, for customers who have the need to synchronize and share their data between different devices, BitTorrent Sync ™ functionality has been integrated as part of the GuardianOS software.
The Company's Snap Enterprise Data Replicator ® (“Snap EDR”) provides multi-directional, WAN-optimized replication for SnapServer ® and SnapScale ® systems. With Snap EDR, administrators can automatically replicate data between multiple SnapServer systems for data distribution, data consolidation, and disaster recovery.
Our AccuGuard ® is a powerful Windows-based backup and recovery data protection software designed to be used with our RDX QuikStor ® and QuikStation ® removable-disk solutions. AccuGuard ® is an easy-to-deploy solution that is designed to protect Windows servers and desktops on physical machines and in virtual environments. AccuGuard ® delivers reliable, automated schedule based backup and recovery utilizing a powerful deduplication engine.
Disk Systems and Virtualization
V3 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
The V3 hyper-converged platform is a turn-key, purpose built and custom tuned appliance for high performance virtual desktop infrastructure. V3 appliances can accommodate from 50 to 200 virtual Windows desktops per appliance. Each appliance is compatible with DCO, described above. V3 appliances simplify desktop virtualization with innovative technology that make it possible to achieve virtual desktop performance that is faster than physical desktops, while hosted from a single 2U-based server appliance. V3 cost benefits are derived from the way the appliances integrates storage, server and networking resources into one hardware device.
RDX ® Removable Disk Solutions
Our RDX ® removable disk media are shock resistant to accommodate accidental falls from the rack, desktop or during transport. The media can also be secured with cartridge encryption for additional levels of security. The Company offers two types of RDX ® media: media with hard drives inside the cartridge and media with solid-state disks inside. Hard drive RDX ® media is designed to provide easy-to-use and reliable data protection, while solid-state disk RDX ® media is designed for customers who are operating in environments that need extreme speed and durability in a portable storage device. RDX ® removable media are available in several different capacity points, ranging from 64GB to 2TB per cartridge.
The RDX QuikStor ® removable-media storage system combines the portability and reliability of tape-based backup with the speed and simplicity of hard disk drives in order to deliver reliable and convenient storage for backup, archive, data interchange and disaster recovery. RDX QuikStor ® drives utilize either hard disk drives or SSD drives, with either SATA or USB 3.0 connectivity, and provide up to 2TB of data storage.
The RDX QuikStation ® is a network-attached removable disk array designed to provide a platform for data protection and off-site disaster recovery for SMB environments. The RDX QuikStation ® can appear to a host as a tape library, a virtual RDX drive, a stand-alone tape drive, generic disk drives or a combination of disk and tape, offering users versatility and expanded compatibility.
In December 2014, the Company rolled out its removable storage technology called RDX+™ (“RDX Plus”), which is designed for the Company's products addressing the fast growing purpose built backup appliance market. RDX Plus is the industry's first software technology designed for 64-bit software architectures that enables support for disk drive capacities greater than 2TB. RDX Plus enabled backup appliances are uniquely differentiated with backward and forward compatibility with our QuikStor appliances as disk drive capacities grow beyond 2TB.
SnapScale ® Clustered Network Attached Storage Solutions
Our SnapScale X2 ® and SnapScale X4 ™ products are clustered NAS solutions that enable organizations with rapid or unpredictable data growth to scale capacity and performance without adding management complexity. SnapScale ® eliminates islands of storage, which enables scaling without having to predict capacity in advance. SnapScale ® writes data across multiple nodes and drives simultaneously for instant protection and high availability. Our SnapScale ® products are designed for high performance, high scalability, and are available for the storage and archiving of unstructured data.
The SnapScale X2 ® is a 2U rackmount, which can be configured with up to 12 Nearline SAS hard drives for a minimum capacity of 24TB per node, and can scale out to 512PB with 2-way or 3-way redundancy.
The SnapScale X4 ™ is a high-density 4U rackmount, which can be configured with up to 36 Nearline SAS hard drives for a minimum capacity of 72TB per node, and can scale out to 512PB with 2-way or 3-way redundancy.
SnapServer ® Network Attached Storage Solutions
Our SnapServer ® solutions are an ideal platform for primary or nearline storage, and deliver stability and best-in-class integration with Windows, UNIX/Linux, and Macintosh environments. For virtual servers and database applications, the SnapServer ® family supports iSCSI block-level access with Microsoft VSS and VDS integration to simplify Windows management. For data protection, the SnapServer ® family offers RAID replication, and snapshots for point-in-time data recovery. The SnapServer DX Series ™ products support DynamicRAID ® and traditional RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10.
The SnapServer ® XSR40 is a 1U server that can be configured with up to four SATA II drives, and can scale to 120 terabytes of storage capacity by adding SnapExpansion enclosures.
The SnapServer ® XSR120 is a 2U server that can be configured with up to 12 SATA II drives, and can scale to 288 terabytes of storage capacity by adding up to seven SnapExpansion enclosures.
SnapSAN ® Storage Area Network Solutions
Our SnapSAN ® products provide block-based primary storage for virtual server environments and low latency applications. Systems can be managed through intuitive management interfaces that employ guided wizards to facilitate easy installation and administration. Our SnapSAN ® products also offer a powerful set of features including thin provisioning, mirroring for high availability, replication and snapshots for data protection.
The SnapSAN ® S3000 is a 2U storage array with options for 1Gb or 10Gb iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or SAS host connections, designed for midrange businesses and offers thin provisioning, volume cloning, synchronous and asynchronous remote replication, snapshots and disk spin down for reduced power consumption. The SnapSAN ® S3000 can scale up to 384TB using the SnapSAN ® Expansions.
The SnapSAN ® S5000 is a 2U storage array with options for 1Gb or 10Gb iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or SAS host connections, designed for the enterprise and offers the same features as the SnapSAN ® S3000 as well as SSD integration for caching and policy-based tiering, performance analysis, and tuning and compliance tools. The SnapSAN ® S5000 can scale up to 384TB using the SnapSAN ® Expansions.
Tape Automation Systems
NEO ® Tape-Based Backup and Long-Term Archive Solutions
Our NEO Series ® Tape Libraries and Autoloaders are designed for small and medium businesses looking for simple, cost-effective data protection, as well as for complex enterprise environments with stringent performance and data availability requirements. The Company provides a broad range of high capacity, high performance, flexible tape-based solutions for data backup, recovery and archive. When combined with our enterprise storage solutions such as SnapServer ® systems or SnapScale ® scale-out NAS arrays, our NEO Series ® products create a complete disk-to-disk-to-tape solution with a variety of storage capacity options. NEO Series ® tape solutions are designed to utilize the latest linear tape-open (“LTO”) technologies, and can accommodate up to 24 tape drives and 1,000 cartridges for maximum efficiency and data protection.
NEO ® XL-Series libraries are designed for mid-range and enterprise businesses and provide automated backup that combines flexibility, density, high-performance and affordability to ensure that data is protected faster and more cost effectively. The NEO ® XL-Series starts with 90TB of data storage capacity, and provides the ability to increase that storage capacity up to a total of 3.5PB. NEO ® XL-Series significantly reduces backup windows and improves efficiency with high-performance data transfer rates that range from 504 GB per hour to over 60TB per hour. The NEOxl 60 supports up to 60 cartridges (with capacity ranging from 90TB to 375TB) and three tape drives (for data transfer rates ranging from 504 GB per hour to 4.3TB per hour). The NEOxl 80 supports up to 80 cartridges (with capacity ranging from 120TB to 500TB) and six tape drives (for data transfer rates ranging from 504 GB per hour to 8.6TB per hour). Up to six 80-cartridge/6-drive NEOxl Expansion Modules can be added to provide a total of 560 cartridges (3.5PB) and 42 tape drives (60TB per hour).
NEO ® S-Series libraries provide affordable tape backup for small and medium businesses. NEO ® S-Series libraries are available in compact rack-mount configurations with either SAS or FC connectivity. The NEOs StorageLoader is a 1U, 8-cartridge, single-drive autoloader that provides up to 50TB of storage capacity. The NEOs T24 is a 2U tape library that supports up to 24 cartridge slots and two tape drives, and delivers up to 150TB of storage capacity. The NEOs T48 is a 4U tape library that supports up to 48 cartridge slots and four tape drives, with a maximum storage capacity of 300TB.
NEO ® E-Series provides scalable, high capacity, enterprise-class tape automation that is ideal for large businesses, incorporating the latest LTO technologies, redundant robotics, partitioning capability, mail slot access, and scalability. The NEO ® 8000e is a 43U tape library that supports up to 500 cartridge slots (up to 3PB) and 12 tape drives (up to 17TB per hour) in a single module. For truly enterprise-class storage requirements, the NEO ® 8000e is scalable up to 1,000 cartridge slots (6PB) and 24 tape drives (24 TB per hour).
What an impressive list, that was all added in 2014!! Somebody has been a busy little bee
Thank you, apart from verifying the importance of two of our partners right in the first paragraph, particularly liked this:
"The study was conducted by 451 Research LLC and commissioned by Microsoft."
And that led to:
https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=84727&referrer=marketing
Hmmmm...
Yeah, but he is not really a guy who is into disruptive tech and that silly cloudy stuff, just another guy on Kool Aid obviously
http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-experts/evan-kirstel.aspx
For ease of reference the link: http://seekingalpha.com/author/tech-alpha/comments
I find it also very clever that they split up the disk and virtualisation revenues ( like the new rdx product line with hyperconverged solutions, V3 and glassware from the tape revenue, so nobody should claim that most revenue now (even from the side of OVRL) is coming from tape...only the shorts still intentionally refer to Overland as tape storage solutions provider...
As to us also selling directly into the verticals. Have a look at the new hires like Stoney Hall or Craig Fisher (https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=22439485&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=ycPz&locale=en_US&srchid=779201551428169311517&srchindex=1&srchtotal=2&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A779201551428169311517%2CVSRPtargetId%3A22439485%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary%2CVSRPnm%3A&_mSplash=1)
The shorts in so many other ways try to be factually evasive, and despite us pointing the real story all the time (getting tiring for management and us here), the shorts just repeat themselves like a broken record hoping that if they just ignore facts and repeat wrong or old stories, then hopefully they manifest themselves as truths in the minds of some people...
Seriously frustrating...
Could not agree more. If you have an investing time frame that is longer than a few days time, this is an absolute no-brainer here. There will, I am absolutely sure (as my portfolio would confirm, putting my money where my mouth is) not come another time in our lifetimes the opportunity where we will be able to pick up cheap stock of a company that has been validated by that many great names in the industry!
Or ask yourself how often have I seen an opportunity like this happen? How often do I think an opportunity like this will come again? Be honest to yourself...
Normally, companies like Sphere go public only ONCE they have reached multi-billion dollar market caps and normally we complain that only top tech VC firms only got the opportunity to buy early. You want to know why that is normally the case? Well, just look at what Sphere has to go through! And now, due to its unique history here we FINALLY go, finally our chance to participate in a new VALIDATED technology in a huge future growth sector at an early stage and cheap price...
So, what will we do about it?
After all of the partnership agreements over just the past months, ANYbody who then decides: "No, I would rather act emotionally right now and in panic exactly do what the shorts want me to do!", well he or she almost deserves to then not benefit from this...fair enough...
Last point for today, if you think the temporary share price drops hurts emotionally (hey, lets be honest it does!), but then just imagine for a moment then what it would feel like emotionally to have passed out on an opportunity like this...and then apply that pain over a lifetime...
JMHO
To PT,EK,PB saying on behalf of all of us, with the pre-amble stated. I understand completely that they did not want to reveal too much publicly. The only thing I took offence with was not to say from the beginning that they will only take questions from analysts. Then we all wouldnt have bothered. Honestly, most big companies dont allow retail guys to ask (imagine would Apple allow John Smith to ask a question on its cc?) but it should have been clarified as such beforehand...or said since we don't have any further questions from analysts..Thank you!
But leading people from all over the world who have a significant part of their net worth in a stock to join the call, pressing *1 on their phones and being hung up on, that scenario could have been avoided...its not fundamental clearly emotional...I know...
However, the stock market is all about expectations, and no matter if it is not being able to ask, or missing earnings (which they didn't even! so today's action was SO unnecessary!!), the market reacts...I know its all emotional, which is the only (big) comfort, but today's reaction could have so easily been avoided ESPECIALLY given that they even exceeded their prior stated results! And (I posted a summary) they even included some nice nuggets...
That the fundamental picture did NOT change (in fact looks better than ever) which is the real BIG and GREAT thing...however, they could have let us know more about whats to come this year...to give us and the shorts that feeling that ANY news could come at ANY time... That's how you really light the fire under the shorts
ANYway, I am absoolutely sure we will have a nice news pipeline this year, very simply logically as with no big and multiple deals or news items you can not achieve the sales ramp up they are very confident about!
As before, in this or other stocks, we will make it through the valley....
While I am not selling and here for the long run, I can't deny being a little bit happy about what they have done with yesterday's "clever" action. Let them see how "clever" it is to hang up the phone on their investors. Frustration emails won't help, THIS they might notice.
If I may politely correct you here: accounts receivable are accrued when delivery is made with payment outstanding (GAAP, so called accrual accounting)
The good thing is this will, as people pay for the services they already received, replenish our cash position, again, which is why they mentioned it...
Accounts receivable is a balance sheet item, not related to the reported revenue in that period alone. It is not related to Overlands revenue (which was only included for a month in Q4). It reflects the accumulated entire amounts still owed now for all past services rendered to customers of Overland and Sphere in their entire past...
Why they mentioned it, is to say, we have an asset here that will turn to cash as received (i.e. as 31st Dec. people owe Sphere and Overland $15 million)...
I agree with you, the $200 dollar per user figure would most likely only be approached, for example, fo Novarad's clients...corporate, heavy duty, high value add clients...We also have to respect that we are yet in the very early adoption phase, which for most tech companies means that a different pricing /incentive gets applied than a little further down the road...
With the education vertical, I think management very consciously chose it exactly due to the sheer numbers in that space, as there you suddenly add thousands of users with every deal! In this context, let's not forget the value of building a recurring income stream...especially in the early stages...it is reliable income and finances future growth...
Recurring revenue is every business' dream...
A post full of wisdom...eom
Well at least we will have some exposure and an investor event in June...
Will somebody of the group make it there?
Of course it is under attack, just read that SA article, the shorts even contacted in spy mode Chesterfield, tried to get what doubt they could, even published a co-operation partner's client's representative response without asking him or anybody else! etc. etc.
Yes, management may be acting paranoid of the shorts, but HARDLY without a reason!
Just look at the many short posters miracolously showing up today...pure co-incidence? Hardly
Well yes, lets not forget they did clarify some items:
- Docker being also focussed on containers and even having opened the container approach, BUT even when running on Windows servers Dockers only being able to virtualise Linux applications, i.e. addressing only a tiny market (low single digit) whereas ours (Windows based apps) is over 90% of the market!
- PT also clarified that their focus is now on Windows legacy apps as their market is so huge while giving specific examples and numbers. However, emphasising that despite that immense market Glassware's capabilities are way beyond just being able to virtualise Windows legacy apps.
Before that what I liked is:
- For the first time we got actual $ figures per user in the educational space, from $15 to $200 per user per year! Nice figures especially when considering that it means recurring income stream...
- They also explained how converged their product portfolio already is, meaning that our unique tech finds its way also into the hyperconverged storage solutions (THE growth sector in storage btw) which is why disk and virtualisation revenue was put together (with tape obviously seperated)
- He did also talk about the validation and opportunities through Pearson and Microsoft (though I could not take notes on that )
Feel free to add when listening to it again...
So, while it may be less than what we hoped for, at least some things were clarified...AND for the first time we actually have revenue figures and understood that we charge annually per user...recurring $$$
The analysts got through though...maybe they just wanted to take calls from them at this time, and just respond to the email questions they felt comfortable to answer now...
There was a dial-in number too, not only webcast, though just posted in the release an hour before the call...so many submitted questions...where all just waiting for others to start? I am sure they were surprised too...
To be coming to an answer who did actually press *1 to ask a question? Did anybody?
Yes, but the cost savings achieved are nice and ahead of plan. Obviously, they are taking the cost cutting at Overland very seriously...
Noticeable Is the revenue reporting breakdown of the merged entity, which we see now for the first time and will see going forward:
Product revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $8.6 million. Disk Systems and Virtualization revenue was $4.9 million. Tape drives, media, and tape automation revenue was $3.7 million. Service revenue was $0.9 million.
It clearly seperates the "old" tape revenue from the new disk and virtualisation revenue and service revenue.
This as analysts will most likely place a lower revenue on the old tape revenue (though that is experiencing a revival as we read in many industry articles) so I like the clear breakdown...most importantly, as anybody who says oh, most revenue of Sphere 3D is coming from old style tape revenue...bla, bla, bla will not be able to do so
Hi, sorry to ask in order to understand, was that by your broker or somebody from or close to management?
Yes, we will definitely have record revenue as a newly merged entity and show very strong year over year results compared to the same period last year:
"We closed out 2014 with strong financial results as compared to our prior results, and have started building momentum for 2015.
This year will actually be very hard for the shorts to contain the SP as:
Q4 2014: Record revenue as for the first time one month of Overland revenue is included
Q1 2015: Record revenue as for the first time both entities'revenues are included for the first time
Q2 2015: Most likely again record revenues as GW starts to shine through significantly in terms of revenue buildup.
etc. etc....
from here on out... as you can see from above... we are practically destined (fingers crossed) to have very nice Earnings Release headlines at the very least!
Should get us some attention
Mac, I think we have to respect that achieving a $160 mil. run rate by Q4 of this year would be an IMMENSE and near incredible rate of growth from current levels.
To already automatically expect that somebody will exceed their stated goal equates to begging that person or entity to underpromise their goals in the future! Fearing that retail shareholders will then be automatically expecting that goal to be exceeded...
I mean with your interpretation you are practically asking them to underpromise in the future.... What good does that do for all of us long term?
Again, not feeling like a party pooper as a $160 mil. run rate by Q4 of this year would be absolutely INCREDIBLE! No matter what valuation method you apply, from this level we would be anyway absolutely GOLDEN!
100% agree with all, the questions collected turned out to be way more and much more specific than initially thought. I also highly doubt that management would be able to even answer most questions due to time, business and confidentiality constraints.
However, I listed them all as after having collected them I was faced with the choice of either pre-selecting most submitted questions subjectively myself (thereby abusing my position), which would be unfair to the people who kindly submitted them, or just letting management decide which ones they can address on the call. After all they are in the best position to do so.
We are all mature enough (am 100% sure) to understand that management will not be willing, nor that it would be in our very own interest as shareholders, to lay bare all specific aspects of our business plan. After all you never know who is listening...whether our resident shorts or competitors etc...
Collection of questions for the conference call of Sphere 3D Corp. after the Q4 2014 Earnings Release
Dear Sphere 3D management,
First of all, let us please thank you and your entire team sincerely for the immense progress you have been achieving. Below is a list of questions we have compiled as a group of loyal shareholders and inquisitive minds. While we understand that you might not be able to answer all of these questions in detail due to business, confidentiality or time constraints, please kindly appreciate that every little step towards more transparency helps to make us shareholders more comfortable, limit the potential damage of unfounded accusations and constrain share price volatility.
For ease of reference, the questions below have been categorized into financial, strategic and technical questions:
I. Financial Questions
1) How do we get paid by a server providers such as DELL who incorporates GW? Recurring revenue or a one-time fee?
2) How do we get paid by a solution providers such as Novarad or Pearson that applies Glassware for its customers in its solutions? Recurring revenue or a one-time fee?
3) Regarding MSFT, how do we get paid for use of GW in Azure? Initial fee, by user, or a combination? Who is selling GW to Azure users, ANY or MSFT? What will drive revenues from GW use on Azure?
4) The goal of Sphere 3D as we understand is an annual run rate of $160M by year end. What part of this increased revenue is expected to be attributable to GW? Roughly speaking, what are your GW related sales goals in terms of percentage of total revenue in Q4?
5) How would you see the relative importance of the diverse revenue stream (Overland, GW, V3) develop over time? Which aspect of the business do you foresee to become the most important one for Sphere 3D in the future?
6) Do you already have a goal on when you expect Sphere 3D to become profitable? Or is your intent to primarily focus on growing the revenue side of the business for the time being?
7) Will revenue and income guidance for 2015 and beyond be made in the near future in order to facilitate institutional investments and coverage via sell-side analysts?
II. Strategic Questions - General
1) Why were the education and healthcare vertical chosen as the first sectors to implement GW? Where they the lowest hanging fruit in terms of income or ability/ ease for technical deployment?
2) When do you foresee GW to start being implemented in other sectors? Which ones? Which sectors do you foresee to become the most important ones within 2-3 years?
3) Are you already working on further expanding the network of partnerships (whether in the educational, healthcare or other sectors)?
4) Does ANY sell directly to customers at the moment or focus on sales through partners or re-sellers?
5) If primarily re-sellers are used for sales, what does the Overland/Tandberg sales force/channel add to the GW effort? Or are they primarily focusing on Overland/ Tandberg products? Have you already actively implemented and observed operational and financial synergies?
6) Where do you see the biggest challenges for Sphere 3D currently and going forward?
III. Strategic Questions - Specific
1) Are there GW education deployments other than New Caney and Chesterfield (please put some light on the deployment there if possible especially given the recent attack by the shorts)?
2) Are you already working with or have identified other large customer leads for GW in these or other sectors?
3) Specifically, how is the GW penetration through DELL DRIVE + since its inclusion in March 2014 progressing?
4) How is the inclusion of GW at the 800 locations serviced by Novarad since the announcement of the deal in 2014 progressing?
5) Specifically, can you please give us an update on the POC studies with Ericsson in MSP vertical?
6) ATOS and Promark - Are their sales forces fully trained on selling all products at this time and are they pushing them as a total solution or solely focusing on marketing Overland products?
7) Have any forays –through whichever channel- been made into providing GW on a State or government level?
8) Are there any plans for an independent platform agnostic App Store in near future?
IV. Technical Questions
1) While shareholders understand the requirement for stealth during the development stage, now that we seem to have entered the commercialization stage of Glassware, how can current and future customers, industry analysts or shareholders gain a better idea of the GW technology and its potential and capabilities? Do you intend to provide demos or ‘sandboxes’ to industry analysts in the near future?
2) Some critics label GW as a “niche technology/solution” for Windows legacy apps and the like, while others see GW becoming ”ubiquitous” in the technology sector. Where in this very wide range of interpretation would you locate GW?
3) Please update us on any feedback you have received from clients/ early adopters of GW?
4) How do they - and you- compare GW to technological solutions of Dockers, VMWare and the like? Are benchmarks, demos or comparative statistics capabilities and implementation cost comparisons publicly available?
5) Is the GW technology and its support through internal or external resources ready to be deployed on a larger commercial scale?
6) Is management aware of any competing technology that currently or in the immediate future may threaten the “disruptive" or "ubiquitous" nature of GW?
7) Do the patents currently held and applied for protect the technology and IP sufficiently?
8) How would you foresee the implementation and sale of GW on a chip? When would such be ready to be commercialised? Who would you see as early adopters (in terms of customer target group or sector)?
9) Lastly, where do you see Sphere 3D in 1-2 years as far as its impact on cloud computing and the technology world in general? Are you confident that Sphere 3D’s GW based technological solutions could make Sphere 3D a widely known significant player in this space? If so, to which extent and time-frame?
Needless to say, the above reflect a subjective collection trying my best on an early Sunday morning to incorporate everybody's questions to the extent and in a wording that they could get addressed by management on the call. ANYbody wishing to add questions over and above please feel free to also ask as far as possible on the call as I have been kindly asked by some posters here to send them to management asap so that they have at least little time to review them prior to the call. Better an imperfect collection than a late one. However, while I take responsibility for the idea of submitting these to management ahead of time, I also owe them and us I feel that - given the amount of questions submitted- that we should not be disillusioned that above would probably take two days if we wanted them to answer all of these questions, and that in fact, management may not be best advised to answer all these questions in detail (after all it is a very competitive marketplace out there), but at the very least they get a very good idea of the questions that are on our minds. Many thanks again to everybody for their kind contributions.
Great questions guys! Please keep them coming today and then by Sunday morning US time, I am happy to volunteer to add them together and seperate them into clear categories for an easy overview (like financial, strategic and technical as key categories)...please also feel free to indicate which questions are most important to you...
Then as people comment/approve of its structure and completeness, by Sunday afternoon I can pass them on to PT, EK, PB via email...and Scott, so he uses his direct influence for follow up too...
Before the conference call itself we can nominate a representative who would be happy to go first to address the questions (a mod like Struftepete, JB or anybody else) to read out ANY questions unanswered before the Q&A session of the cc, somebody who takes notes and asks according to what was not already answered before the Q&A part. When he has addressed the main questions left that the group had compiled others can of course jump in...
That way, i.e. in a clear, structured and organised way, we maximise our chances of addressing our questions, whether
1) financial (eg revenue streams, break even, guidance)
2) strategic (update on partnerships, stealth etc) and
3) technical (development stage and feedback on existing and new products, support etc)
we can all collectively get the most out of this nice opportunity!
Absolutely agree!
It is KEY for us to use this forum to exchange our most important questions before the conference call. In fact, once compiled even share the list (absolutely excellent start btw!) with management beforehand so that management can try to incorporate some answers on the main questions and concerns we have ahead of the Q&A section even. This way we maximise what we can get out of the call!
Another reason why? Given that - as the SA piece showed- the shorties dont stop at any tactics including bothering key guys like Jason Katcher, they surely might try to sabotage the Q&A session too with either aggressive or irrelevant questions, which is why it is very important that we try to identify our most important questions FIRST. Then submit them to management ahead of time, so that they can clearly see what our real most important questions are and can prepare accordingly where they can go specific, or give us examples, hints etc.
Failure to prepare is to prepare to fail (on both sides, us and management)... especially when faced with limited time (such as on a conference call) and a common desperate enemy!
Jason Katcher's public tweet:
Jason Katcher ?@jkatcher74
@pbookman My Texas rep is speaking with yours on Mon. I'm joining call to learn more about ways @Sphere3D may be able to help #googleedu.
Dear Lama, in regards to your question, in short (no pun intended) shares that were sold naked (as the CUSIP change will reveal) will be deemed “failed to deliver” on Nasdaq.
What it means: Leaving even a mildly significant naked short i.e. “failed to deliver” position (above 0.5% of outstanding shares, so in our case less than 175'000 naked short position), would place ANY on the Reg SHO list after five so called “failed settlement days”, making the short's life MUCH harder, and actually impossible to continue to play their manipulative naked short games, which is exactly the intent. They will not ANYmore be able to continue to freely sell shares they don’t own or have borrowed and have to settle their "failed to deliver"positions within 13 days. Basically, the regulation intends to fight shorts who aim to bring down a security by endlessly dumping shares that don’t exist thereby driving shareholders into panic.
Should somebody still go short on a security that is on the Reg Sho list (same holder or anybody else) then they have to buy back the shares on the same day before the close or their broker dealer will have to prove that they borrowed against the shares they went short (expensive and limited shares available), one of the two. Now, while some may be sad about the short not having to immediately cover (he das get 13 days after being on the list), it is very important to put ourselves in the short’s shoes. For very large naked short holders like we suspect in ANY to be exposed in that fashion in a low liquidity stock with no possibility to continue his practice is an absolutely damning and unattractive picture in terms of risk:
1) The shorts would basically become handicapped in their actions and be exposed to everybody… particularly short squeeze hunters!
2) Management might then also be tempted to light the fuse under their exposed and handicapped almighty with some good news..
3) "When a broker-dealer has a fail position in a "threshold security," and that fail position has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days, the broker-dealer must take immediate steps to close-out the fail by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity. Even market makers that have such persistent fails in threshold securities must close-out their positions." (source SEC, link below)
Normally, stocks that will make it on the Reg Sho list are penny stocks, biotech stocks, Chinese stocks and some ETFs (that are so liquid that the shorts can get out anytime anyway, so no risk of getting squeezed in them). Naturally, should there be a large “failed to Deliver” position be uncovered in ANY by the CUSIP change (somebody here said “the count down” would take a few days to start following the CUSIP change (don’t know the source) as the countdown itself is five consecutive days), then ANY would stick out on that list quite strongly. Also, short squeeze players would be attracted, wishing to exploit the short’s confirmed large naked exposure, handicapped position and his obligation to over within 13 days..which is exactly why you see so very few stocks in which shorts’ take that immense risk of getting themselves on that list in a low liquidity stock…never mind in large numbers like we suspect..
As mentioned before, my understanding only, and only applies if indeed a legacy large short naked position is uncovered from our time at the lovely TSX...
Below are a few links that could help:
The SEC on Reg Sho:
https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/keyregshoissues.htm
List of Nasdaq tickers on list (notice only 7 Nasdaq stocks are on there (excluding the AM funds and ETFs for aforementioned reason)) showing that only very few shorts take the risk of being on there, and usually aim to get off asap anyway:
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=regshothreshold
Link to Failed to deliver chart supplied by Lama (notice the little spike in ANY.US (even when we were still on the TSX before announcement of completion of merger):
http://failstodeliver.com/default2.aspx
It is very telling in many ways:
1) Timing: Obviously they started composing the article straight after seeing the CUSIP change AND fearing ANY positive news during the earnings release (only two days to go now), their way to get out is to hope others pick up the short position from them, or that they get a very last quick chance to pass on their short cheaply. The good thing is those traders that would sell on an article are very short term traders. They go in for hopefully quick gains and out again, meanwhile the writer obviously already went short before and is trying to get out, otherwise he would have shorted more himself, but he wants others to pick up the fire ball for a good reason!
2) Aspects attacked: Pathetic in terms of going back all the way to Corel where the followers already know that they followed much bigger plans then AND no attack on DELL, Novarad or MSFT. That became impossible, so they are obviously with that article hoping and going for first time quick readers on the stock. What do you think those who quickly went short based on that article will do when they read that there is so much more to Sphere 3D?? That the SA author conveniently "missed" to mention? Hmmm....
Also, to say there is no direct legal Chesterfield School connection: We know they obviously work in some way with Google in the Chromebooks vertical, and JK even became a shareholder AND recommending the stock! Also, we know they work with Pearson, as even in many places UNDENIABLY indicated by major educational IT player Pearson on their own website! So...if Pearson was the re-seller/ co-ordinator for Glassware's implementation, just as a very simple example, then the school's legal relationship is with Pearson and ours with Pearson in turn, so of course no direct legal relationship between Chesterfield and Sphere 3D! How easy is that to see through? Say if you buy a car with airbags your legal relationship is with the car manufacturer, not the airbag manufacturer, no matter how important your airbag is!
So both main points (timing and attack points) CLEARLY point towards desperation...next week is going to be a VERY interesting week. :)