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WAVX SP surges 2.8%
on rumors of a BoD shakup.
Group 6, re:
"'They lined the buyer up and coordinated the buy'
Do we KNOW this? I've seen lots of folks speculate that, but I'm not convinced one way or the other."
It seems the most rational explanation. Its difficult to conjure normal market dynamics affording such volume so quickly with so little volatility absent such an arrangement. Add to this that MLV expressly states that as one of their modes for disposing of shares and it seems any other explanation is wildly more complex to the point of being contrived.
unix That seems insane, the short you describe still needs a buyer, your scenario is one of two sellers. Two sellers does not make a transaction. Is it your argument that some third party buyer was waiting in the shadows to scoop up the massive short (can we agree that 800k shares short in 30 minutes is somewhat on the massive side?). Who would wait in the shadows to absorb a massive short position rather than just buy direct?
It is much more plausible that either
1) A buyer simply wanted to take a position without chasing a price and the ATM accommodated.
2) A short wanted to cover without chasing the price and the ATM accommodated.
Your scenario fails to consummate the transaction.
D&O, no,
the name was Bulocinic not Bucolic.
Doma, I neither assume nor believe what you say I assume and believe.
doma, dilution represents the increase of the number of shares in exchange for an increase of cash or assets in the treasury. I lament dilution when I perceive that cash (paying Peter $250k in 2011) or those assets (iShopHere) to not represent value equal too or in excess of the dilution. Conversly, I accept or even welcome that dilution when the cash is used sensibly (preventing bankrupcy e.g.) or used for assets (Safend) that I believe will result in greater value than the dilution factor penalty.
I have no interest in owning undiluted shares of a bankrupt company or owning undiluted shares of a company that loses market opportunity and market share due to holes in its product portfolio.
Dilution is simply part of a puzzel and cannot be interpreted in a 1:1 fashion. The dilution affording the acquisition of N*Able was a steal, the dilution affording the acquisition of iShopHere was a blunder. I suppose the jury is still out on the dilution affording the acquisition of Safend.
The word dilution, by itself, means nothing. Its whether one gets more value in return for that dilution than one spent that is of issue.
I think the dilution experienced over the years for what I consider to be excessive compensation of some (mostly on familial lines) to be poor value. BICBW.
bsencer, a minority yes, a small minority no.
It seems the voting at the last SHM was not a "small minority" thing.
zen, ditto,
its about ROI. How much will I gain (if anything) verus how much I would have to put into it.
I vote my shares. That's about it on this.
I have pissed and moaned about sliver-spoon nepotism shares, whole PIPEs that effectively went straight into the pockets of Lee instead of the company, and my votes for the Board reflect that.
I have no love for the nature, structure or accountability in the upper echelons of the corporate world.
I could devote my life to it, or barbecue some pork.
In the end, investment is a binary decision.
If Wave succeeds there will be institutional investment by active financial managers. They, undoubtedly, will exert whatever pressure they believe they can towards whatever ends they believe will improve the performance of their investment.
I'll very likely be gone by then.
doma, if you bought 10,000 shares
6 years ago at post-split $2.60, then you spent $26,000 on something that today you could sell for $18,600 then that would represent a paper loss of $7,400. It speaks towards those shares and that investment. It says nothing of any other shares or any other investment regardless of how hard folks try to make it so.
That is what is. Certainly one could try to explain why it is (e.g. dilution). But any attempt to describe a set by interpreting it in terms of what it is not, and by creating identity to things that are not members of the set is poor reasoning.
Some are up, some are down, some are the same. Monotypic characterizations of the journey (SP change) are the only thing that makes no sense with a growing population whose members have dramatically different origins.
I never said "dilution costs shareholders nothing". I lament dilution with great frequency. My point is that considering the comparative change in valuation of shares and investments as identical because today's outstanding shares currently have the same value is foolish.
The 28 cent shares have only gained in value having never spent a second in the red and likely never will. The $150 shares represent a crashing smoldering rocket that will likely never see green.
Doma, that is largely what I said although I converted the presplit shares into the shares they are today. Dilution is new shares. They bear a price when minted. Interpretation of those shares valuation performance in terms of other shares printed in a different century is foolish. Why not compare them to soybeans, rice or the neighbor's house. When one speaks of the bath current shares of WAVX have taken through a 20th century lens, they can only be speaking about <15% of the shares. The others simply did not exist. I could speak towards how hard WWI was to me, except for the whole part of me not existing then. We could look at WWII amputees and conclude that all humans are amputees, it ignores things like birth, death, reverse splits, and dilution.
You are correct, for shareholders who holdings are represented by shares bought at a split adjusted $90, they have taken a bath. Few of such shares exist. They are very expensive shares that have taken a bath, and there are comparatively few of them.
Those e.g. who purchased the silver-spoon-nepotism shares (Series H, I, J e.g.) have done splendidly.
While all Class A shares are equal today, they were not created equal. Pretending to interpret their performance uniformly through a lens that represents a significant minority is foolish.
Obviously if shares I hold go down in value, for any reason, then they go down in value. whether or not they go through a reverse split is immaterial, unless of course, they return to their pre-split market valuation which is what shares tend to do in splits of either direction.
Most of Wave's dilution is post-reverse split,
most of the shares of Wave outstanding today bear no relation to pre-split circumstances, the shares quite simply had not been printed yet.
The big year for dilution was 2009, and the shares printed then, were going for well under a buck. Those shares are doing well.
Indeed while some hold tightly to looking at the valuation of shares printed back in the 20th century, they represent about 15% of WAVX shares. The massive overwhelming majority of shares outstanding have no business relating to such a time.
Certainly that small but significant percentage of outstanding WAVX shares has taken a bath, but using them as the metric to speak towards the majority is foolish.
Indeed, all of the subsequent shares, the mountains of dilution were bought buy somebody, a price was paid for them, and it was not pre-post-transwarp-split pricing, they were newly minted shares bearing the price of the day.
Am I supposed to mourn the valuation of my house because the PREVIOUS owner took a bath on it? The 40 million or so shares issued post rev-split were issued at prices below a buck. I keep telling those shares how much they suck, but it never seems to stick.
Normal course of business,
FWIW, on the back of my napkin the Dell amendment looks to be currently in the ball-park of revenue neutral, or at least if revenue negative, well below the sort of magnitude threshold that Wave historically uses as a cut-off for 8-k issuance.
That it, Wave generally 8ks unusual events of any magnitude and normal events in the 10%+ of quarterly revenue. This is not an unusual event, they Dell thing has been going on for some time, and its impact on revenue looks with almost certainty to fall below a 10% impact on revenues in any near term quarter.
With that the case, the development fell into the optional category to me, and Wave apparently concluded there was little or no benefit and no requirement for accelerated reporting.
Again, quarterly and annual reports are the principle means of communicating material events, 8ks simply represent a path for accelerated reporting of unusual events determined IMO by whether they are outside of normal business, or whether they are big enough that their size alone make them unusual. This was neither, the numbers in the 8k back that up.
also on cross selling,
as memory serves it seems SFND components were part of the BP deal, BICBW, but if so it could have settled any internal considerations on buying SFND at Wave.
bspencer, clueless,
but FWIW I'd figure it forms the basis of the "repectable core growth" that I was saying is required for $60 and perhaps the basis of SKS' "bottom up" notions towards indicating that $60 was reasonable in the absence of a big TC flowering.
Afternoon musings
the notion of $60m for the year is essentially the notion that SMB/bundling, what I call "core", will experience respectable growth, that a couple/few $3m-ish BASF-like deals will occur, and otherwise no big-deal significant adoption (read DoD).
I would like to add that a pretty significant move by DoD would not dramatically alter these numbers. If one speculates such a thing for Q3, with it booking over a year (1/8th in Q3, 1/4 in Q4) then even a rather large step into TC by DoD (say they drop $20m) would show up as $7.5m ... significant but not earth shattering from a bottom line perspective representing a 10-15% rev growth on its own for the FY.
Its easy to model anything from $50m to $60m in the absence of significant TC adoption, heck, I spose one could model $40m, but there is no data or trend to support that.
To the extent that there is historical data for Wave, Q4 and Q1 can be weak in the absence of large orders. Services revenue for Wave was zero in Q2, $274k in Q3 and then $552k in Q4. Somebody is having some work done, done by Wave, and presumably because they expect to deploy something. One could hire a firm that specializes in prepping surfaces for painting and then not paint, but that seems unlikely. I expect that if one is having Wave doing the prepping, it is because they expect to use Wave stuff. Call it kool-aid if you like.
It sounds like they beefed up staff considerably (and the numbers show it) and that they plan to pause on that, feeling their staff is now adequate to support significant expansion of sales and they seek to flatten expenses until such sales occur. So, if 2012 is continued slog throughout, I'm thinking exps at about $65m.
While Q1 numbers will look bad with GM and BASF? coming off, tkc ran some billing numbers that indicate that billings were up Q4 for core business and the AR-AP values seem to reflect that. So while Q1 will give great press for those looking for weakness, it will likely look like slog but not flop.
Is suspect that services revs may well involve Samsung, and it is impossible to underestimate that Juggernaut. They are a monster and they can move surprisingly quickly. Their complete rework of the Tabs e.g. represented a stunning feat of engineering that would make even Apple blush (Apple sued instead claiming to have patented the look and feel of a thin rectangle).
If one considers Samsung-Wave in the smallest sense then one could imagine something like the old BRCM deal, you know something like a dime a unit. That would still eclipse Dell, but given the market postion of Samsung, a greater contribution from Wave seems inevitable (BRCM doesn't sell phones and Tabs or $100s the sell ethernet controllers for a few bucks).
If one migrate towards a buck a device for those so equipped, and does the math on the Samsung devices vs the Dell-TPM equipped devices it looks good. Dell is about $22m last year, for bundled software on a minority of its devices. Considering the scale of Samsung offerings that are applicable, a monkey could come up with $100m annual with essentially little effort. Samsung is showing devices with Wave capability, somebody paid Wave $552k in Q4 to fiddle with things, the world is screaming BYOD, even a small buck a device on a minority of Samsung devices is real coin.
The Samsung timeline is rather fuzzy. The first Samsung products are expected "relatively soon", which means next to nothing to me, so I Wave my hand in the general direction of 2013 on that.
DoD WEM pilots are stated to wrap up "during the summer", later than many have been saying. That indicates to me that the $20-ism DoD thingy is less likely this year than some speculate. The Army engineering work is for devices that while important are not many in number. This is all more in line with what I've felt as far as the rate of DoD consumption of TC.
So, in closing, IMO if Wave sees $60 or meaningfully north of $60m it will be driven by enterprise adoption of SEDs, ERAS, TDM, and Protector(SFND), not DoD or DIB adoption of e.g. WEM.
Confusing this point was SKS' "absolutely" when asked whether Wave could see "10 WEM sales this year". The pilots coming to close "during the summer" and 10 sales things don't add up to me.
Some WEM quotes:
SKS preparred remarks:
unix,
or ...
scrambls is a developing project that costs 100k/mo to run, who knows if it will amount to anything.
The ATM is being used (dud), and as you say, being used to fund the company ... as opposed to decorate floats for a parade? The notion that they are using it and then the brilliant leap that such use may entail funding the company is scintillating.
Yes SKS wont buy stock, it says so on his birth certificate, and as such that is rather old news.
Your billings comment is an over simplification to the point of error. Yes, large billings (the ones that give cash-flow positive quarters you deny) create bumps. One can back out the few larger order to see broader business and whether it is growing or not. It is. Indeed Wave QtoQ billings rose substantially, more than expected or reflected inn broader numbers. Just as Q4 had the large order a year ago, and Q1 does not, are you going to cheer the jump in QyoQ that will result? Doubt it.
bspencer,
I think drone represents a potential and that it was head fake .... or not. Again, I don't know much about force structure, but drone seems Air Force, although I would not be surprised if all branches had drones just like they all have planes.
The Army Sole Source thing mentions DRS as the supplier, and DRS' content regarding their FBCB2 support shows computers in trucks and such. The interview SKS gave said things like trucks and drones.
I see nothing that has DRS in the drone business. The stuff DRS makes looks more battlefield rugged than super weight conscious drone-like.
http://www.drs-ts.com/jv-5.htm
http://www.drs-ts.com/pdf/JV5%20Block%202%20w%20Specs%20FNM.pdf
mib,
the estimate is a pretty wild thing for sure and I expect the costs for, say 100k seats to be not much different than the costs of 10k seats.
I think in hindsight it is likely much fewer seats. If my dots are correct, and given the clear indication we are not talking laptops hear but things like Humvee's there are not as many of them I would imagine considering total "systems" for FBCB2 is around 120k units as i understand it, but in all seriousness I know nothing about force structure.
Yes initial deployments have costs, not at all on the scale you seem to be implying IMO.
Cost of sales and the associated margins are reported in the filings, take em or leave em I suppose.
reach, yes, FBCB2 alone is some 120k plus machines,
but that is a sliver of the Army. I do not expect FBCB2 to suddenly replace 120k machines. I expect they will roll some 10k machines as the initial procurement from DRS and that those would be the "FEB/MAR 2012" machines stated by FBCB2 to come from DRS in the Wave engineering award.
10k machines is $750k and not likely to involve a PR. Future orders for FBCB2 from DRS I would expect to be similar and never trigger a PR. I would expect FBCB2 to try to fully deploy FBCB2 SED hardened forward devices over the course of a year or two.
The "modest" payment is for the engineering services and will book as such. The licenses for the software will book separately as it percolates through the SI and books ratably.
None of this is the stuff of PRs. One should see improvement on the top-line in Q reports.
It appears to be the first of what one might presume to be a steady stream of mil procurement. When mil sets up a purchasing account it is likely P.O. for a known delivery, paid on delivery, and is up to the nature of a particular command structure how and when they go about buying things. The absence of a big PR seems to be rather plausible. Obviously if things roll mil becomes a 10% customer and would then get recorded as such in reports, but I see no requirement for them to but this add-on (Wave Software) in a big bunch ahead of time.
So while the Dells and the DRSes PR their $300m deals, not every piece in it that on the P.O. reads as an option gets PRed.
Looks sloggy to me.
What is this Army Thing?
From the J&A
https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=dd79a609dcf915b121b8c79954717e14&tab=core&_cview=1
“PM FBCB2 needs to leverage enterprise class technologies Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to bring this security into the FBCB2 systems with minimum impact.”
and
“Once the hard drives leave the manufacture there is no way to provide managed binding with hard drives that ship out to locations in CONUS and Overseas operations. PM cannot utilize and issue encrypted hard drives to the field in a timely manner if support is not acquired before shipments of encrypted hard drives start coming off the DRS assembly lines FEB/MAR 2012. “
and
“Wave’s expertise is unique in that they have worked with and are familiar with the FBCB2 architecture and have gone through the process of acquiring a Certificate of Networthiness.”
and
“Wave is the only company that currently understands all aspects of the middleware, the Wave Management Software which is used for managing the self-encrypted modules in conjunction with the Army Self-Encrypted drives.” … and later … “is the sole owner with proprietary rights to the Wave Management Software needed to access the encrypted hard drives that the PM is buying.”
and from the Wave PR:
“The Army is exploring the enablement of SEDs with Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) in its systems in order to mitigate the possibility of data being compromised if hardware were to fall into enemy hands. Wave has been retained to provide expertise in the area of SEDs and TPMs to help yield the maximum security advantage of these technologies while minimizing the disruptive impact to Army's fielding and sustainment. Wave will also provide vital engineering support to Army missions in support of continental U.S. and overseas operations.”
"This contract affirms the value and leadership that Wave brings in leveraging embedded security for mobile endpoints operating beyond the network perimeter," said Steven Sprague, CEO for Wave
and from the post-PR SKS interview:
“CEO Steven Sprague said that while the value of the contract is small, he considers it significant becaue it’s the first time that recently-implemented security systems known as trusted computing standards have been used in military missions - such as hard drives in trucks or drones - rather than simply computers and laptops.”
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2012/03/26/daily18-Wave-Systems-provides-security-for-US-Army-missions.html
and finally, as DRS is mentioned as the supplier, one is likely looking at items like this:
http://www.drs-ts.com/pdf/JV5%20Block%202%20w%20Specs%20FNM.pdf
Specifcally, this device is slated as a FBCB2-BTF item for trucks, the same as the J&A.
Call me a dot-connecting fool, but the Wave PR was a back-pocket PR regarding the Army Sole Source contract that they chose to roll out before the CC to make it a fair game talking point for those who don't read DaBears' iHub fine print.
My belief is that when Wave provides general engineering services it goes for $800k-1.7m as has been the case in the past. This, I believe is pre-deployment engineering work for products effectively purchased … in the Army’s words: “coming off the DRS assembly lines FEB/MAR 2012” and “Wave Management Software needed to access the encrypted hard drives that the PM is buying”.
If it is engineering work to simply get your “COTS” software up and runnning, the the fees will be at cost, not a penny more.
On this one, for whatever reason, I believe SKS is understating what the project is. In every prior reference, this is an immediate deployment. Who knows how many devices. FBCB2 claims it has put some $120k+ units in the field. I expect that these will replace those units in a normal refresh rate, say, 40k units a year. I’m pegging that at $$75 per seat, or $9m to Wave over three years to start booking Q3 2012.
Well, the 1.70-1.74 range is currently looking like a pretty decent read, ... so does your stuff stick to the pretty short term? Running through the SMA20 and 50 in a day, decent for any 1.70 buyer.
It seems that HSAs "cybersecurity" to date is an effort to collect and archive all communication of any kind between any people. I see little evidence of HSA doing any securing, more one of monitoring and recording.
wavxmaster, certainly there are the civil rights, political, and abuse of power concerns. I was thinking more in lines of how they expect the thing to work.
When one walks up to TSA among the Qs are, have your bags been out of your possession, anybody asked you to carry something for them?
Metaphorically, this facility would essentially have to respond, they are not my bags, I have no idea what's in them, I collect everything I can find, and I focus on anybody or anything I think is a criminal.
So, think you'll get on the flight, or wold your collection of unknowns be deemed a risk?
How does a computing facility that is deliberately seeking to collect unknown stuff from bad people protect itself ?
wavxmaster, so how do you secure that?
This center is designed to gather tons of everything from everywhere and bring it in house. It is designed in gather tons of unknown content from unknown devices and park it at home.
Unknown computing. Seems vulnerable, like trying to blow up a garbage truck.
rwk, ooops, that was supposed to say not,
*NOT* dripping with big production costs ... as I hope I indicated later, I was presuming it cost absolute nothing and was a ditty on a rarely visited utube site.
wavxtoo, well, it did nothing for me,
and certainly was dripping with big budget production costs (?), but as I find almost all adds to be awful or miss the mark, I figure my opinion doesn't matter. I mean its a bazillion dollar industry, supposedly and effective one, and I am almost uniformly unimpressed. I do assume with this thought that it was somebody killing a Saturday messing around. ICBW.
PreCC ramblings On Profitability, Investment, and Vision
(this is Dig rant, you may prefer to skip it)
Wave is going to (and continue to) report a loss. There are those that think Wave’s massive investment in mobile should be tempered so that numbers are at or nearer profitability.
Nonsense.
Nobody, again nobody, can pretend to be a security company anywhere near the area where Wave operates without making massive investments in mobile, now and yesterday. Seeking better numbers now by making more modest investments in mobile would guarantee obscurity to the point of market irrelevance.
Musing about losses and ATMs etc loses the clear and present truth that while Wave leads in Wintel TPM-TC, that ecosystem is expanding, and one MUST lead that expansion. It is not a choice, it is not putting off profitability for hopes of a pot of uber-mega-gold, it is REQUIRED.
Wave MUST invest heavily in mobile TC to protect and enhance shareholder value, PERIOD.
One does not lead the development of a platform technology in order to sit idly while it makes the critical transition from a Wintel niche to a broader paradigm.
The way, the ONLY way (for Wave), this is done is to dump every penny into it, with the resources to dump more (the ATM).
I fear that when asking for greater clarity from management, that it is interpreted by management or others as a lack of clarity on the vision or a lack of justification of the investment. No. That is not the case. If Wave were NOT to invest heavily in mobile I would dump my shares NOW. This company has no future in the absence of significant mobile investment. Fortunately, a demigod of non-Wintel mobile devices, Samsung, has selected Wave as the goto for their TC efforts. Actually, this is not “fortunately”, this is EARNED. It is the consequence of years of R&D and many millions of investment. This is what relentless investment brings. I get that.
Still I would like to see a nuts and bolts explanation of where (today) the money comes from, a clear segment description of how, where, and why there is going to be more, and where the money is going to. I am not interest in (at the moment) having the discussion by management distracted by notions towards near term profitability or when that will be. I believe shareholders would like to see evidence that Wave looks at things like sales-per-non-RD employee and so on, and that they have plans.
I am perfectly comfortable with Wave saying they have dumped 5 million into mobile and don’t expect a penny out of it until xyz time.
I am perfectly comfortable with Wave saying they tripled their EU sales force thus driving sales-per-employee down 300% and they don't expect that to recover until xyz time, or whatever. That is not a reflection of not getting that they need to invest in mobile or the general TC vision. I have the TC vision. What I don’t have is any vision for Wave’s execution, that they actually have something resembling metrics, problem areas, and task forces if you will. That when they throw a bunch of money in, say, sales in Arizona, that they have some sort of vague plan of how and when they expect to recover that.
It’s not the external TC vision that is at issue, it is the internal Wave as a business vision that is absent.
wt, yes, that was a FORM 12b-25 giving a preview of estimates for the 10-k yet to be filed (and in it, cash-flow statements) which should shed a lot of light on the potential veracity of the various ATM speculations.
MIB, you say
MIB, seriously,
Lockheed lost bloody terrabytes of data to China (them among zillions of others), and your response is that they must not have installed enough freeware?, or ok ... not enough paid for maleware/spyware/viruseware/etc/ stuff?
Seriously, do you hold to the premise that the current security software technologies are more or less adequate?
Speak towards this, tell me, in the face of all of the press, institutional efforts and rules that enterprise and governments are developing and adopting ... is it your position that they've gone bonkers and that the current situation is actually just fine?
Is your idea that they just need to assemble the constellation of software you run and all is well?
MIB, good, we have moved towards a more rational discussion.
Your thingy's don't find anything.
There is this world of enterprises, governments, and security firms saying those thingy's are NOT cutting it.
What say you to them?
MIB ...
unix, cash-flow determines cash requirements, a point elusive to many.
Take FY2010, red-ink every quarter, but no ATM, no PIPEs, hmmm... that cannot be you say.
Learn >> cash-flow and profitability are different things.
Now perhaps they 'have to use the ATM', on that I don't know, as I have not seen recent numbers on CASH-FLOW.
But the facts speak clearly, they have been running red-ink for many consecutive quarters with no ATM and no PIPEs, and not because they were burning some fat bank account from the beginning of the period. Indeed, the grew cash all while posting a loss. Again, they grew cash while posting a loss. Work on this: They grew cash while posting a loss.
Your statement is positively incorrect. It states a necessary causality that is pure unadulterated bunk. You state that if they have red-ink they must need cash. They grew cash while posting red-ink.
MIB, while I haven't looked back I believe I said below malwarebytes, not below programming. Malwarbytes is by far not the only software I use to try to achieve system integrity. You didn't really address any of the points I mentioned. You claimed "never" and so on, I asked how you knew, and you shifted to the fact that there are profitable companies out there.
You state a conclusion as if it is a fact.
The considerable amount of press and resources devoted to problems you assert are solved runs contrary to your conclusion.
Consider for a moment that given so much money time and effort is devoted to solving something you say is solved, and ridding platforms that of things you say aren't there, that perhaps your conclusion isn't a fact.
Consider that your conclusion is an opinion, one that the vast majority of enterprise, government, AND security firms disagree with.
bspencer, I agree,
I think it would benefit Wave 9and shareholders) if they migrated away from the vision thing and even the business case thing and actually try to provide some insight into segments, segment performance, explanations for segment performance, and plans to improve segment performance ... beyond the boilerplate of waiting for a market to engage, actually communicate metrics that folks use, state clearly the R&D component of expenses and what it is for, state clearly sales per employee and where you see it going and why.
Yes, they need to migrate to a more boring grown-up nuts and bolts presentation (IMO).
Everybody has heard the vision thing and the chasm thing and the paradigm thing and it is generally accepted that companies perceive and are hopeful about pipeline thingy's, but none of that at this stage is really communicating.
unix, the SP in one week,
next week, is material to those who seek to buy or sell next week.
For anybody who is not planning to buy or sell next week not only is it not "the real question" it is actually not a question at all.
Revenue is actually up
(all est based on latest filing)
consolidated:
QtoQ +14%
QyoQ +54%
FytoFY +38%
non-Safend
QtoQ -3%
QyoQ +31%
FytoFY +32%
So yes, if your apocolypse is based in the -3% QtoQ for non-Safend sales, then yes, but by any even slightly broader sample with or without Safend your “revenue flat” statement is pure unadulterated bunk.
bspencer, I reread your linkthru,
basically you are saying
1. management needs to buy stock on the open market
2. no dilution (so the Safend purchase e.g. was a f.u., by far the single most 'dilutional' event in the last couple years)
3. be accountable
On accountability, I simply have no idea if people get fired at Wave or not. Certainly senior management has not fired themselves. The Feeney thing, well, I certainly wasn't happy with it (and considered it caveat-laden ill-advised gibberish), but on the other hand, he has managed to fund the company, and while the consequences of that funding are unpleasant, the alternative was to fold-up shop, and I'm not sure how that translates to share holder value.
Certainly their exec compensation does not sit well with me, but I can't find a company where it does, certainly their communication is awful (too much blather, not enough hard clarity that even affords the impression of accountability or that accountability is part of the Wave culture), and certainly, it would be nice to see them buy stock.
If they did all of those things tomorrow, it might affect SP (the transient measure of shareholder value).
MIB, as a malwarebytes user myself,
I'm wondering how it is you know you "never" have or don't have e.g. an APT parked on your machine?
Certainly I have no such confidence. Yes, malwarebytes scans and malwarebytes says there is nothing there, but I don't see how I can translate that into a "never" level declaration.
From a, you know, logical scientific standpoint, generally folks avoid declarations that something "isn't" and resign themselves to a more cautious "I don't detect anything".
Given that a goal of malware is to not be seen by malwarebytes (and anything else for that matter), what are you using to look at system integrity beneath malwarebytes?
Again, I use and like my malwarebytes product, particularly for some of the 'other' machines I take care of where users are much more inclined to spend time in infested areas or stumble into clicking thru on a phish or run peer-to-peer torrents.
Weby, there are components of your content on this one I applaud.
It would be nice to see CCs migrate away from the vision thing, and away from broad generalizations about pipelines, and towards some explanation of real metrics the company really uses (or the development of such metrics if they don't).
Sales per employee (or per non-RD employee). What were they, what are they, where are they going, when. What specifically is being done to move that metric. What regions/markets is the metric good, what regions markets is it bad, what is the plan specifically to improve the metric in 'bad' areas?
Some breakdown of numbers and groups.
The Dell number reports ... what's that mean? Is that all bundling? If not, how much is bundling? Does bundling move or is it flat? Project bundling per customer. 'Dell has been largely flat in bundling ... variations in the Dell number reflect recognized defrevs from large customer upgrade/orders' ... or not.
Acer? Simply give a bloody number. Is it growing? The answer needs to be a number. 'Acer is $100k and from what we can tell from the last 2 Qs is growing at about 10% QtoQ.'
Sales groups ... 'we've dumped a ton of coin building our gov sales team, or not, or regional people, or not, or reseller liason folks or not.'
Illustrate the segments, report the segments. Say: this segment disappointed, this segment did well, and so on.
Crap, I listen to CCs of folks who's primary language is not English and they go through numbers, they break it down, they say 'we booked a fat loss because we hired a bunch of people in Brazil and we haven't sold a hot dog there yet and we don't think it is likely for 6 months but we felt we needed to build that infrastructure now so that segment is going to drag on everything else for the next 2 Qs.'
They (grown-up CEOS) sweat in CCs. I've listened to CCs where they are almost trembling as they walk through the points.
On the one hand I think never from these guys, on the other I think ... you know, they've never tried and have nil experience in a grown-up CC. They might be surprised and surprise themselves and investors. (nah)
A clear no bones about it explanation for how they are going to monetize the scrambls affair and exactly how much that thing costs are necessary. Period. Not, 'we think there will be some real opportunities for this tech' really? Name them. Ads? Royalties? What?
TpT, a few points,
SKS will address ramp and hiring and so on, but it wont mean much. Sure, they hire to build and sell more stuff. That's pretty much what he will say. "Critical juncture" "tremendous opportunity" ... I believe these things, timing in execution being the things that can only be observed in the past tense, so, in some ways it looks early (exps) but I really don't know.
On juvenille cc cancel, I simply do not know enough. I expect they assembled their stuff, gave it to an auditor, auditor didn't like, they though they could pull it off, they failed to ... again, I know absolutely nothing about that process, I can't judge whether its "juvenille". It didn't much effect the SP. The actual numbers may do that.
On ramping up to sell ... I can't discriminate between ramping up to sell from ramping up to not sell. As a practical matter they are both ramping up. Now, if you are talking winding down to sell, that's a separate matter. Cut staff, cut costs, cut R&D, polish the books and sell, but that's winding down to sell. I do not think that notion enjoys the support of shareholders.
On generating shareholder value, I have never really known what this means. Does that mean saying things that will bolster the SP? If it means doing things then I would assume it means building and selling products, which is what I believe they are doing. There are some cosmetics they could do, give the options dump a rest, maybe actually buy some shares, tighten some comp belts to squeeze the numbers towards looking better (but not really meaningfully impacting growth).
Basically, in the end, I have this Q as a miss or revs at around $1m. The rest is mostly an alignment of events.
Acquisitions cost money, check.
SBcomp translates directly to profit/loss, check.
Building a sales network in anticipation of (as opposed to in the presence of) significant demand costs a ton, check.
I kinda feel like I have been saying this for some time and that time has finally come (well except that $1m miss in my guestimator, which is a drag for sure).
It was great fun to point at a doughnut hole for months. Folks generally seem o.k. with doughnut holes as abstract things out in the future. Folks seem to feel entirely different about doughnut holes once they are actually in one.
This is what a doughnut hole is feels like from the inside.
Suddenly, (perhaps) some casual interest in trees? Oddly, at this juncture I (of all people) am inclined to opine 'don't lose sight of the forest', this thicket of trees has been on the radar for a long time.