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Gates to exhibit Vista Windows upgrade at CES By Franklin Paul and Daisuke Wakabayashi
2 hours, 1 minute ago
Bill Gates on Wednesday will show an avid tech audience the long-awaited major upgrade to Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows operating system, called Vista, as the electronics industry's biggest U.S. conference kicks off.
Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chief software architect, speaks later on Wednesday and is a veteran keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, held annually in Las Vegas.
A dozen industries are convening in Las Vegas this week for the industry's annual confab to show off the latest electronic gadgets as they angle for a bigger share of a $122 billion industry. In all, the show will include more than 2,500 exhibitors, 130,000 industry participants and 28 football fields of display space.
A central theme this year is portable digital content, taking video and putting it on various devices, from portable players, portable disk storage, and being able to watch it easily and seamlessly.
Wireless broadcast tower operator Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI - news) announced plans to launch live television in several top U.S. markets this year and aims to deliver video and audio services to a range of products from cellphones and portable media players to laptop computers and cars.
Microsoft has promised to launch Vista -- formerly code-named Longhorn -- in the second half of this year. The next version of Office, its office productivity software suite, also is slated to launch around that time.
On Wednesday evening, Gates takes the wraps off the operating system's user interface, and his presentation is expected to focus on the consumer-related features of Vista, such as moving video, music, movies and other digital content easily among PCs and devices.
In addition to Gates, chief executives from Sony Corp. (6758.T)(NYSE:SNE - news), the world's biggest consumer electronics company; Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news); Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news); and others will be on hand to give speeches.
Palm Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM - news), for its part, said on Wednesday it had started sales of its Treo mobile phone powered by Microsoft software, a device that could help Palm compete against Research In Motion Ltd.'s (Toronto:RIM.TO - news) BlackBerry for corporate customers.
Palm's Treo 700w device, introduced at the trade show, will run on the high-speed data network of Verizon Wireless, using the Windows Mobile operating system. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ - news) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L).
The new Treo could potentially open up a much bigger corporate market for Palm, due to Microsoft's central role in the desktop computer software and back-office e-mail markets.
Also at the show, Japan's Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) said it plans in March to sell a high-definition, or HD, DVD player in the U.S., becoming the first electronics manufacturer to roll out a player for next-generation DVDs.
Toshiba and Sony, leading rival camps, have waged a three-year battle to have their different standards adopted for the new DVDs, which promise much greater capacity for high-definition movies.
"HD DVD represents the future of HD digital video," Yoshihiro Matsumoto, president of Toshiba America Consumer Products, said.
"It gives consumers a clear migration path from DVD."
Toshiba, along with NEC Corp. (6701.T), has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (6752.T), the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been championing a technology known as Blu-ray.
This year's show features gadgets ranging from advanced satellite car radios to luminescent fibers that can turn clothing into wearable lamps to camera phones that can take nighttime pictures without flashbulbs.
Big Asian electronics makers, automakers, computer and phone companies and even pornographers will be out in force, seeking to define their roles as new technologies blur the line between industries, and allow for media on
Hamster my man at your figures $2500 invested right now would be worth $36,231 at the $10 end of this year best guess. The wisest sage on this board was the one who said the wealthiest wavoids would be the ones last to the game.
Dave
EFS I think they were plenty of folks that got burned here during the tech run up, but that is ancient history. The biggest mistake made ny the shareholders here happened, in my eyes, when the TCPA/TCG began to take hold and make inroads. We got to see Wave's name hooked onto the cars of the elite in the industry. It didn't ignite the sharepreice-why would it as this company was unknown, or being ignored by everyone except the converted, the traders and the haters-former longs burned in their eyes by the lack of execution. The Intel/IBM run up a few years back fueled the expectation fire and really caused folks to lose sight of the big picture and the massive undertaking of getting the product to market. It was as if Intel was the yellow brick road. Everybody chose to ignor the massive potholes on the way- the box makers needed to be shown this was the right course of action to take. Wave was right all along-look at the number of offerings by multiple companies today. Look at the articles and references you can find by a simple Google keyword search. We were all off the mark on the timeframe, but we have all learned trusted computing won't be built in a day, just sometimes in the next 12-18 months.
Dave
Why does anybody bother to engage in the same tired arguement about wether this stock is a diamond in the rough or a huge turd? This stock has always been a pure speculative play with a huge risk/reward ratio. Anybody that thought otherwise has fooled themselves. Sure, there was always the tease in the PR's and the CC's. I cannot let this pass without mentioning the dot connecting and the second to none DD that continues to surface after so many years, and twisted turns that we have seen this company make. BUT, the fact remains that despite the PR's, the names the company has been linked with and the tremendous DD ,most have not come to fruition. What has come to fruition has led to very minimal rewards-to this point. The little that has developed, however, has the potential for tremendous upside. Through all of this the company still carries no long term debt-amazing given the companies position, nor has any of the company been sold off-time will tell wether this was a wise decision.
Regardless of what has been said, how much first mover advantage may or may not have been lost, Wave still is the best pure play with the highest reward in this space. They are working with the major PC manufacturers. They have Dell and Intel. They are interoperable. There are others in this space that might be a better investment-Intel, Dell to name a few, but the majority of these companies won't have the same reach Wave will over this space if they are successful. The share prices are far higher and the floats of all these companies are nearly 10 times or more that of Wave's.
If we wanted a safe plodding investment we would have taken the money off the table long ago. The majority of us here have weighed the risk/reward and that is why we stayed. That's why I stayed. This is still the best pure play in this space today.
Dave
Starz to Offer Download Movie Service By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer
1 hour, 54 minutes ago
Starz Entertainment Group is launching a movie download service that allows consumers to view full-length studio films, concerts and TV shows on portable devices powered by Microsoft Corp. software.
The service will provide the content critical for the success of a number of devices that will be introduced at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off in Las Vegas this week. Video delivered over the Internet will be a key theme at this year's show.
The service, dubbed "Vongo," is available for a monthly subscription of $9.99 and will eventually include more than 1,000 movies, short films and other programs. The films will be available at the same time they are offered on the Starz premium movie cable channel, about five to six months after they are released on DVD.
Users will be able to download as many films as they want each month to up to three devices, including Windows-based computers and portable devices running Microsoft's Portable Media Center software.
A smaller number of films will be available several months sooner for a pay-per-view fee of $3.99. Subscribers will also be able to watch a live, streaming video feed of the Starz TV channel.
"It's kind of iTunes for movies," said technology analyst Rob Enderle, referring to the music download service offered by Apple Computer Inc.
Enderle and other analysts also said the service will reinvigorate the market for portable devices, such as the ones already offered by Creative Technology Ltd. and iRiver. The devices have not taken off, in large part because of a lack of compelling content, most notably big studio movies.
Starz said its Vongo service will also be a key feature of the Sony Connect video service set to launch later this year.
A number of newer, smaller portable devices will be introduced this week and over the next several months to compete with Apple's video iPod, which can play select ABC and NBC TV shows.
"The portability is key," said Laura Behrens, an analyst at Gartner Industry Advisory Services.
Portability also will make it easier for films downloaded to a computer to be viewed on a TV, where most people prefer to watch movies.
Films downloaded from existing online movie services, including Movielink, a joint venture of five Hollywood studios, and CinemaNow, which counts studio Lions Gate as an investor, can be viewed on a TV. But the process involves stringing a cable from the computer to the TV set. Wireless home networks are not yet robust enough to handle the large video files.
Viewers will still have to attach a cable from a smaller portable device to a TV, but it will be easier to carry a movie from a computer in an office, say, to a TV in another part of the house.
"It's not elegant, it's not perfect, but it's a step," Behrens said.
The Starz service will not include films from every studio. It has exclusive rights to films from The Walt Disney Co. and Sony Pictures and has licensed some films from other studios.
Home Box Office and other premium cable services have rights to distribute films from other studios, but have not launched similar online services.
Starz is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. and is based in Englewood, Colo.
___
http://www.vongo.com
Securing the Enterprise Beyond the Perimeter
Deperimeterizing security architecture
By: Richard Moulds
Dec. 23, 2005 05:00 PM
http://issj.sys-con.com/read/159567.htm
Recent high-profile security breaches have taught us a clear lesson: organizations that rely primarily on a secure perimeter to protect sensitive data are fooling themselves. This year, hardly a week has passed without headlines about a security breach involving sensitive data.
However criminals get the data, whether through a traditional perimeter breach, use of insider credentials or outright theft of physical storage media, the lesson is the same. Organizations can no longer regard everything inside the traditional perimeter (people, machines, and networks) as "trusted," requiring only a "soft" approach to security that consists primarily of procedural controls and weakly enforced permissions.
It's an approach to IT security that's like a candy M&M: once criminals penetrate the hard shell that protects the network from the wholly untrustworthy public Internet, they can easily devour the data at the soft center. Actually they often don't have to penetrate the perimeter at all. They can simply go around it by stealing unencrypted backup tapes, for instance, out of the back of a cargo van.
Not only are attackers constantly blowing open security cracks in perimeter security, but enterprises themselves are also willingly, and often unwittingly, contributing to the perimeter's disintegration.
For example, virtual private networks frequently tunnel through the perimeter, which often provides all-or-nothing access to network resources. Web Services, which are starting to finally fulfill the early hype, are meant to interconnect business processes and often reach into the core of an enterprise network. Factor in the mass of mobile devices, wireless networks, portable media storage and off-site data archival, and it's not outlandish to suggest that there really isn't a perimeter at all. Instead, enterprises need a "jawbreaker" model in which the network is "hard" all the way through to the center.
Drivers Behind the Jawbreaker
Unfortunately the traditional perimeter model doesn't just fail to provide adequate security. It's also far too expensive and inefficient to deploy, given today's far-flung workforce. Enterprises have to manage an exploding number of network connections for employees working at home, traveling and staffing remote offices, not to mention the connections they've built to the networks of partners, outsourcers, and customers.
Enterprises need a unified management approach to the identities of users, their rights and roles, and ultimately the enforcement of those rights. The search for a unified approach has led many security experts to believe that security will soon be deperimeterized.
In a deperimeterized world, every user is "remote," whether he's on the corporate campus or in a coffeehouse halfway around the world. Instead of building a perimeter around the network, in a deperimeterized architecture there's a virtual perimeter around every user or internal system that establishes "islands" of trust that securely exchange information.
The Jericho Forum (www.opengroup.org/jericho), a security organization recently founded by corporate CIOs, is taking a stab at defining the requirements for both the short-term and long-term transition to a deperimeterized world - a unified world with an inherently less expensive, more consistent approach to identification, authentication and authorization. By and large, its vision doesn't require the development of brand new, whiz-bang technologies, but rather strings together existing technologies into a unified whole.
The Jericho Forum's vision is no pipe dream. It's already underway. Computer manufacturers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Fujitsu have all made trusted platform module (TPM) technology a standard feature in their enterprise-class laptops, enabling users to securely lock away in hardware the secret digital keys that are crucial to encrypted communications. These keys let users securely encrypt and decrypt information with their laptops, and give administrators the ability to verify not only that a user is safe, but also that the user's machine is safe.
Dell, for one, has gone a step farther and has put smart-card technology in its laptops so network administrators can assign a digital identity to each user instead of relying on the notoriously insecure usernames and passwords.
Pervasive Encryption
So a world in which every user is a secure "island" raises important questions like how one know who's actually "on" each island?
The foundation of a deperimeterized security architecture is knowing whether users and their machines are who and what they should be. Enterprises will have to use strong methods of authentication such as smart cards, USB tokens and ultimately biometrics to validate users and embedded digital identities to recognize devices such as laptops, phones and even peripherals.
It also begs the question: How will these islands communicate securely with one another?
At the end of the day, the only sure way to enforce confidentiality is though encryption. No enterprise in its right mind would ever send sensitive data across the Internet without encrypting it first. That mindset is now starting to be applied to all networks. There are well-established means for securing data as it travels "outside" the traditional perimeter, means that can be re-applied in a deperimeterized world. SSL, virtual private networks, and Web Services will all be used to link up the islands protecting data "inside" as it moves between cubicles or campuses.
You also have to ask: How will enterprises protect sensitive data and the processes that use them once they've arrived on the islands?
The reality is that pockets of stored data are virtually everywhere and that much of this data is sensitive in nature. In a deperimeterized world, the situation is probably going to get worse. There is a "data at rest" problem that goes well beyond backup tapes. There will be need to be the islands responsible for protecting the data on the island - whether the data is stored in a database, file system, tape drive, or the laptop's hard drive. In some cases, tightly integrated access controls may suffice but, once again, encryption will often be used to provide a last line of defense. If all else fails, a thief's efforts will be in vain - he may have access to data, but because it's encrypted, he won't see anything except gobbledygook.
Clearly, encryption plays a pivotal role in a deperimeterized security environment. But as encryption penetrates deeper into enterprise operations, enterprises will need to deploy new systems to manage - cost-effectively - the exploding number of private keys on which pervasive cryptographic security will depend. There will have to be a mechanism for recovering lost data and separating duties.
It's a big challenge, but once deperimeterization becomes a reality, the payoff will be enormous. Not only will the headlines about security breaches recede but enterprises will be able to expand their networks efficiently and securely to include remote employees, new branches, partners, customers, and outsourcers.
It's only a matter of time before the walls fall down. The question is whether there will be systems and policies available that can raise the security bar sufficiently to cope. Life in a deperimeterized world might be a liberating experience and should certainly be less costly in the long run.
The security industry still has plenty of work to do. What seems clear is that the using cryptography will become more widespread, often under the covers, but nonetheless a fundamental component behind strong authentication and enterprise-wide data protection.
Published Dec. 23, 2005 — Reads 322
Copyright © 2006 SYS-CON Media. All Rights Reserved
Vickers, I too happen to own a position in that one as well. Really would like to what happens when we get a like deal.
Dave
Panasonic launches TPM optional machine
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-panasonic-announces-middle-east-launch-its-latest-lightweight-/2005/d...
note paragraph near the bottom
"Further, the Toughbook CF-W4 can be fitted with an optional Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip."
Panasonic announces Middle East launch of its latest lightweight business notebooks that resist up to 100 kilos of pressure
(Al Bawaba)Building on the success of its elegant business notebook CF-W2, Panasonic has launched its new Toughbook CF-W4 in the Middle East. The beautifully designed, high-quality magnesium casing on this model now boasts reduced weight combined with increased robustness, to resist up to 100 kilos of pressure. The notebook is designed particularly to protect the 12.1-inch screen, the most common weak point for mobile computers.
The screens flexible mounting also contributes to its special resistance, allowing it to yield to pressure, along with an additional buffer zone integrated into the LCD frame. The motherboard also has a "floating" construction, yielding to strong pressure without causing damage.
Despite its extreme resilience, the new Toughbook CF-W4 weighs only 1290 grams, including battery. The minimal weight makes them ideal companions for sales people, business travellers and frequent flyers, who have to cut down baggage volume and weight but still need reliable protection for their notebook. Being a semi-ruggedized Toughbook, the CF-W4 can even survive falls from a height of 30 cm. The new models feature four times thicker cushioning material than their predecessors, to provide an extra 50 per cent shock absorption."The growing mobile workforce in the Middle East and the increased travelling required by modern day jobs, make the Toughbook CF-W4 ideally suited for executives in the region. Not only is this notebook tougher, it also offers excellent performance and comes with a range of user-friendly features," said Ono Asahiko, General Manager, System Solutions Department, Panasonic.
The interior of the designer notebooks has also been upgraded. An Intel Pentium M processor 753 with a faster 1.2-gigahertz clock speed guarantees fast operation. Energy-saving Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) technology and high-performance Panasonic batteries ensure a significantly increased battery life: the CF-W4 is operable for up to 6.5 hours without interruption, on the basis of "Battery Mark 4.01" (Minimum screen brightness). The reflection-free Active Matrix TFT colour screen is also brighter. The CF-W4s screen boasts up to 240 cd. This is not achieved by intensifying the LCD backlight, but on the basis of a "diffusing sheet" that distributes light efficiently and evenly.
Intel Centrino mobile technology, supporting all normal WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g standards, enables wireless data transfer rates of up to 54 megabit/s. A brand new feature means the WLAN function can be turned on and off simply using a switch on the hardware side. The standard versions have a 512 MB RAM user memory extendable up to 1024 MB and a 40-gigabyte hard drive, which can be changed quickly and easily by unscrewing the casing.
The reinforced PC-card slot and an additional SD-card slot, protected against breakage, can be used to connect external hard drives and read memory cards directly, for example from digital cameras. Like its predecessor, the Toughbook CF-W4 has a Combo drive, which reads both DVD-R and CD-R/W. The drive is elegantly integrated into the notebooks front hand rest as an open-top drive for enhanced handling. It can now be used in the narrowest of spaces, for example during flights, as there is no need for complicated sideways opening maneuvers.
The Toughbook is traditionally constructed without ventilators, preventing dust and dirt particles from getting inside the appliance. The processor heat is simply discharged via the casing using the "Heat Pipe System". This system makes the notebooks less susceptible to damage, and has the added benefit of guaranteeing low-sound operation.
Further, the Toughbook CF-W4 can be fitted with an optional Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip. This system-linked interior security component clearly identifies and authenticates the notebook in corporate networks and enables secure data encoding, among other functions.Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., (MEI) best known for its Panasonic brand, is a worldwide leader in the development and manufacture of electronics products for a wide range of consumer, business, and industrial needs. Based in Osaka, Japan, the company posted consolidated sales of US$81.44 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005. For more information, visit the Matsushita web site at http://www.panasonic.co.jp/global/top.html. Panasonic Gulf FZE (PGF) is MEIs first subsidiary company in the Middle East, followed by Panasonic Marketing Middle East FZE (PMM), which is the regional marketing headquarters of MEI for operations in the Middle East and African countries. 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
Near-complete Windows Vista preview
Don't know if this was posted, sorry if it is a repeat.
Posted on : Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:06:01 GMT | Author : Steve Walters
News Category : Technology
Microsoft on Monday released what appears to be a near-complete version of its next operating system Windows Vista.
The latest version has more features for improved security, enhanced performance and mobility and was released as its third Community Technology Preview. This test version will be made available to about 500,000 developers on technology sites and the Microsoft Development Network (MSDN).
The CTP version offers a near complete glimpse of another interface like the ubiquitous Windows O/S which is shipped with 90 percent of the world's computers. Developers have reacted positively to the CTP version.
The CTP version Vista includes features, many security related, that deserve a second look:
Windows Defender- an update to Windows AntiSpyware, with enhanced detection and removal capabilities. It offers protection against spyware, rootkits and other threats. It includes a simplified interface.
BitLocker – protects data that are at risk from being stolen or lost; ideal for laptops. Its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) protects digital certificates and encryption keys besides passwords. A laptop using this feature, would not reveal sensitive data when stolen.
Device Driver Locking – System administrators will be able to block installation of external hard drives, USB flash drives and removable storage devices. This feature is certain to be welcomed by large corporations who fear theft of their sensitive data.
Parental controls – a more effective way to control usage of computers and the Internet by children. It can generate reports of websites visited, restrict certain websites and set time limits to usage.
Improved Firewall – includes both inbound and outbound firewall filtering
Internet Explorer 7 – this feature was included in the previous CTP version but this time round it provides added security for international domain names. It can detect phoney URLs making it effective defense against phising.
Additional features include an updated Windows Media Player, a Windows Media Center and a caching algorithm called Superfetch. This feature is designed for a faster computing experience as it loads all the frequently used software into memory for immediate access. It is now updated to reach into and include content from external storage devices.
The company has certainly chosen the smarter option of a CTP compared to releasing beta versions. Through a CTP, the company has better feedback which helps in the development of the product. Microsoft hopes to deliver the fourth and last CTP before the month-end so that it can be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.
They had better execute in the face of this PP. It looks like the shelf is exhausted. I have to believe that the good will of the share holders and free passes on time lines and rev projections are gone. We are in the 4th quarter with time running out folks. I see no way, no way, the shareholders authorize more shares- we will get to vote on this- if it comes down to needing to do this again. If they need more shares authorized it means the revs haven't come in yet. Which means that the deal will probably be worse than this was. There is no way around this. I think the losses have been too great for some and they will want to get out and move on. Wake up folks, we just entered the last chapter of this story, we don't know how it is going to end just yet.
If you didn't think revs mattered and news would push us higher, you just got your unrefutable evidence. Last week for all practical purposes, we were told in not so many words that DELL was going to be bundling Wave with its business computers. We did not get a pr release, it was in the SEC filing and was picked up and reported by the AP no less. This is public knowledge. We are basically trading at the same price. This was a huge announcement, dare I say, one of the most significant with the greatest implications for Wave. Couple that with the fantastic DD here that has come down the line this year alone and it makes one want to chuck one's unsecured PC through a second floor window. If it wasn't for reading the board here to see what was going to be uncovered next I don't think I would even pay any attention to what this stock was going to do until mid 2006. I see some rough waters ahead with the inevitable PP coming down and the bashers will roll out the delisting talk as well. All I know is that the shares are basically trading in the same range as they were last year-nearly the same price- which means that they are theoretically worth less than they were last year because of the dillution. Which brings me back to revenue. With all that has gone on in the last year, as far as Wave has come, the revenue is the only thing that matters. Everything else is just window dressing.
Dave
Howard, not yet....
the 8-k specifically said business OEM's. Dell has different circulars that go out on the consumer and business side. I have yet to see a television ad by Dell soley targeting business. They are all consumer based. Yes this could not have come at a better time, but the expectations are all still too high and too soon just yet. The consumer side still wants cool things to do with this tech, not just lock things into a virtual vault. If Wave is the player they think they will be, than this is the first of other agreements of the same ilk. I think this is just something that is going to solidify the foundation. And given Wave's financial condition right now this is as big as an home run they could have hit.
Hnstable-business pc's only
from the 8-k released today
On November 14, 2005 Wave Systems Corp. ("Wave") signed a license agreement with Dell Inc. ("the OEM") that permits the distribution of a custom version of Wave's Embassy® Trust Suite security software technology on all of the OEM's business PCs equipped with trusted computing security chips known as Trusted Platform Modules........
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/051121/wavx8-k.html
This is a nice surprise. I, like Zen, will have my reservations as to what this deal actually means. These lines from the 8-k is why I will hold my expections until I can see some solid numbers coming in.
"However, the contract does not provide for guaranteed minimum or maximum shipped quantities or royalties. An expanded and more powerful suite of trusted computing software, the Wave ETS Enterprise Security, Dell Edition version 2.0, offering enhanced security management as well as improved data protection, will continue to be available to customers as a purchase option from the OEM. "
DHamster...we need to think logically about this now. Wave has moved past the point where "good news" is going to move the stock alone. They have put themselves-and those that follow the stock-to move up based on revenue generating news. A few years back we would have got a pop on the demonstrating release we just saw. We are beyond that now-as well we should. The elevation in the ranks of the TCG, the product available today coupled with the number one PC seller leaves any sort of feel good fluffy pr some more of the same old same old. If it wasn't so close to a money cruch time and the end of the quarter I would say that the type of pr you are looking for would be the type of pr with $$'s attached to it so we wouldn't have to go back to the troft again.
Sony's "Rootkit Technology" DRM (copy
protection gone bad)
GIBSON RESEARCH CORPORATION http://www.GRC.com/
SERIES: Security Now!
EPISODE: #12
DATE: November 2, 2005
TITLE: Sony's "Rootkit Technology" DRM (copy
protection gone bad)
SPEAKERS: Steve Gibson & Leo Laporte
SOURCE FILE: http://media.GRC.com/sn/SN-012.mp3
FILE ARCHIVE: http://www.GRC.com/securitynow.htm
DESCRIPTION: Leo and I discuss details and consequences of
Sony Corporation's alarming "Rootkit" DRM (digital rights
management) copy protection scheme. This poorly written
software unnecessarily employs classic rootkit technology
(see episode #9) to hide from its users after installation.
It can not be uninstalled easily, it can be easily misused
for malicious purposes, and it has been implicated in many
repeated BSOD "blue screen of death" PC crashes.
LEO LAPORTE: This is Security Now! with Steve Gibson,
Episode 12 for November 2, 2005, a special edition on Sony's
Rootkit DRM. Steve Gibson, welcome back from GRC.com.
STEVE GIBSON: Hey, Leo.
LEO: The man behind SpinRite and ShieldsUP! and, of course,
Security Now!, our security expert. His expertise is in
taking complex security issues and making them intelligible
and understandable for everyone.
We did a whole section, a whole segment on rootkits a couple
of segments back. And they've returned to bite us in the
butt. What's the latest on rootkits?
STEVE: Yeah.
LEO: First maybe we should define "rootkits" for those who
missed our podcast on rootkits.
STEVE: Rootkit technology is technology which exploits the
hookability, the variability of the operating system itself.
It changes the way the OS works for the express purpose of
hiding malicious software right, like, in plain view, right
in front of the user.
LEO: Used by hackers to hide their hacks, originally on
UNIX systems but now on Windows systems. And then as we -
and if you want more details, you should listen to Episode 9
of Security Now!. But as we mentioned, it's always being
used by spyware. But the big story this week is a big
company that's using rootkit technology.
STEVE: Well, exactly. What happened was that Mark
Russinovich of Sysinternals, who wrote the RootkitRevealer
that we talked about in Episode 9 and recommended to people
that they get in the habit of using, he discovered something
on one of his own machines, using his own tool. Actually,
he was updating the RootkitRevealer to add some more
features to it and, you know, ran it on his system, and
there was a bunch of stuff which, you know, he was as
surprised as any of us who really know or feel like we know
what's in our systems would be. Well, he tracked it down to
a commercial Sony CD that he had purchased not long before.
And when he stuck it in his computer, it popped up an
end-user license agreement, the so-called EULA. And, you
know, he clicked on, oh, you know, okay, whatever, because
apparently it needs its own player in order to play the
music that it comes with.
LEO: This is a kind of copy protection that a number of
audio CDs use now. And by the way, I don't know about this
particular one, but in the past we've just told people, if
you hold the Shift key down when you insert the CD, it will
prevent the running of any software on the CD. And that in
the past has disabled the copy protection and allowed you to
play the CD as you would any normal audio CD.
STEVE: Well, and apparently, I mean, I don't know whether
this has to be installed, or whether it's only for, like,
the extended digital rights management stuff.
LEO: Right, right.
STEVE: But what Mark found was that a whole bunch of files
and registry keys and, you know, modifications, you know,
deep, I mean, true rootkit modifications were made to his
system as a consequence of installing this thing.
LEO: Wow.
STEVE: So, I mean, you know, the RootkitRevealer did what
it was doing. He had no bugs in his code. It was really
showing that something had installed itself malicious -
well, okay, not maliciously, but really without...
LEO: Sneakily.
STEVE: ...giving him any sense for what it was doing.
LEO: Right. So it's being used by Sony to enforce their
digital rights management, their copy restrictions on the
CD. And is there a credible reason for them to hide this?
STEVE: Well, I don't really think so. And what's really
interesting is that, I mean, this feels like déjà vu for me
because, as we talked about before with our original
SPYaWAREness podcast, talking about the Aureate DLL that was
bringing advertising software along and going, you know, it
wasn't using rootkit technology, but it was installing
itself without people really understanding what was going
on, a side effect of that was that it was making systems
less stable. And it turns out, in researching this, I have
found that this has been going on apparently for at least
six months, back to, like, March of 2005. People have been
getting blue screens when they boot their system, associated
with something called the aries.sys driver that Windows
complains is a critical system component. Well, this
aries.sys is part of the DRM system called XCP which Sony is
now installing when you buy one of their disks and stick it
in your system.
LEO: Now, Sony doesn't make this copy protection scheme.
They're licensing it from another company.
STEVE: Correct. It comes from a company in the U.K., and
we'll have links to this company in our show notes. What's
interesting is that this thing has caused so many problems
that even it, this rootkit technology, has a service pack.
LEO: And how do you get the service pack?
STEVE: So you download Service Pack 1 of this crap you
don't want to have on your system anyway, in order to
cause...
LEO: But how do you get the service - how do you even know
it's there to get the service pack?
STEVE: Well, I mean, that's the problem with a software
that installs itself surreptitiously in a machine. Or, you
know, many people had had these problems and didn't know and
didn't, like, logically associate it with the fact that they
had played an audio CD in their system. The box comes up,
and they click on OK, and off it goes. Well, this just
installed a rootkit.
LEO: The license agreement implies that you can uninstall
this.
STEVE: Correct. And there is absolutely no provision for
uninstalling. Now...
LEO: You may think you've uninstalled it, but it's still
there.
STEVE: Well, actually, it's even worse. I mean, again,
it's exactly the kind of things you and I have talked about
before. People have used the RootkitRevealer, also the
F-Secure product that we mentioned in our Rootkits podcast,
the BlackLight product. It showed, back in October, last
month, some users use the BlackLight product from F-Secure
to also discover this. Well, in trying to remove it, they
damaged Windows and lost their CD-ROM drive completely, just
disappeared.
LEO: Well, you know, I get a lot of calls on Call for Help
and on my KFI radio show from people who have disappearing
CD-ROMs.
STEVE: I wonder if this could be related to that.
LEO: This has become a very common problem in Windows of
late.
STEVE: Well, I mean, again, we're reliving history because
this is exactly what was happening back with the Ad-Aware
stuff, which is why I wrote OptOut in order to scan for and
safely remove the Ad-Aware stuff. They had no remover at
all. And when people would improperly delete these things -
in fact, you and I have talked about how even one of our
computers at the office lost its Internet connectivity when
an anti-spyware tool just scraped the programs off.
In the case of this Sony DRM rootkit, it installs a filter
driver sort of in - it's called a "filter" because it's in
line between the operating system and the CD-ROM. And Mark
of Sysinternals had exactly this happen. He deleted this
file, this sys file, and his CD-ROM disappeared. Now, he
knew, because he's a heavy-duty techie, how to go around and
how to go about getting it reconnected. But many people
have had to install Windows from scratch after removing this
thing incorrectly. And in fact, in some postings over on
the F-Secure site, they say, yes, BlackLight, our rootkit
tool, will discover it. Do not use its deletion or you will
lose your CD-ROM drive.
LEO: So let's talk about - there's a number of angles to
this story that I think are interesting. But first let's
just kind of cover the basics. What do we know, what does
Mark Russinovich say this tool does? It looks like it does
quite a bit to your system.
STEVE: Yes. It's got a collection of files and registry
links. So, I mean, it is a true rootkit technology. Now,
one of the problems with this is that it was also not very
well written.
LEO: Oh, great.
STEVE: For example - yes, exactly. It has technology to
allow itself to be removed, but it has a driver-unload
capability. Mark saw, in looking at this, that it attempts
to do so safely.
LEO: But it can't.
STEVE: He knows it's not possible to safely remove
something that is hooking the kernel the way this thing
does, really down deep. There is no safe way to do it. If
you do you'll just get blue screens.
LEO: It's rewritten the system service table; and if you
remove the entry there, the system crashes.
STEVE: Exactly.
LEO: So you can't unload the driver. It leaves the system
unstable.
STEVE: Exactly. Now, even worse, he discovered in his
version that it was also - the drivers were marked as "safe
boot" drivers, meaning that, if you reboot Windows into Safe
Mode, which is supposed to get rid of anything that could be
causing a problem, allowing you to do system recovery sorts
of work, then you'd be safe. Well, this thing now marks
itself as "safe boot." Apparently it didn't used to because
some earlier posts I found had people, they'd figured out
how to work around this DRM, that is, you booted into Safe
Mode, then you deleted a file called caj.dll, which was this
CD-ROM filter driver, then you boot back normally, your
CD-ROM is gone, so you delete it from the Windows hardware
list and then tell Windows to rescan for any new hardware.
Windows would refind the CD-ROM, link it back in, and you'd
be set to go again with this DRM bypassed permanently.
LEO: So apparently people were circumventing the copy
protection, and Sony, or the makers of this copy protection,
decided to make that impossible by making them Safe Mode
drivers.
STEVE: Precisely.
LEO: Wow.
STEVE: Also...
LEO: Yeah, tell us more.
STEVE: It also named itself the "Plug and Play Device
Manager," you know, which it's not, in order to confuse
users who were trying to look at the list of running
services and figure out, you know, why their system has
started to misbehave.
LEO: This is precisely what hackers do.
STEVE: Oh, yeah. And one last thing. What it does is it
hides anything that begins with $sys$ dot dot dot, I mean,
you know, anything that begins with $sys$ gets hidden by
this tool, even things that are not its. So, for example,
to test this, Mark renamed notepad.exe to $sys$notepad.exe.
It promptly disappeared.
LEO: It's used...
STEVE: Even though it was still in the system.
LEO: It hooks into the rootkit and is now a hidden file
that cannot be seen.
STEVE: Which means that, if this software became prevalent,
that junior hackers who don't have the ability to create a
rootkit themselves could simply name their files $sys$, and
they'd all be - they would all disappear, courtesy of Sony's
copy protection.
LEO: Let me underscore this. Sony is installing, without
your knowledge and with really very weak permission, a
program that allows any hacker, whatever his skills, to hide
files on your system without your knowledge. They're
putting a rootkit on your system that could be used by any
moron.
STEVE: Exactly.
LEO: This is just appalling. Now, Sony, as we speak, has
not responded to these allegations. But what's good news is
that this is being picked up everywhere: PC Magazine; PC
Pro; Slashdot's written quite a bit about it. There's also
a good article in The Washington Post. The Washington Post
has a good security column on there, and the author of that
has written a little bit about it. So it's getting
coverage.
STEVE: Yes. Some guy who was blogging on MSNBC, a regular
columnist, wrote a story yesterday about how he was going to
be listening to and reporting on a new piece of audio CD
that he had. He put it in his drive, it popped up this
EULA, and he clicked No. He said, wait a minute, I don't
want software installed on my system in order to listen to
an audio CD. Then he did a little looking around and
realized how glad he was he clicked on No.
LEO: Yes. Well, I wonder how many of us have done this and
exposed ourselves to this rootkit. Do we know which CDs
it's on?
STEVE: Apparently, Sony's been using this kind of
technology for on the order of a year or more. There was
another rootkit-ish technology they were using by a
different name before this. But at least six months this
goes back. And again, the good news is, RootkitRevealer,
that we've talked about before, will let people know if
they've got this on their system.
LEO: If you run RootkitRevealer, what string should you
see? We've mentioned before there are a number of false
positives you can get with RootkitRevealer that are okay -
Kaspersky's Antivirus, Norton's Trash Protect.
STEVE: Yes.
LEO: But is there a distinctive string that you'd see that
would let you know that in fact you have the Sony/BMG
protection on it?
STEVE: Yes. You want to look for the $sys$ on the files
directory off the system 32 folder and a whole bunch of
registry keys. All are protecting themselves and hiding
themselves with this $sys$.
LEO: Are these the null-terminated string registry keys
that we had talked about before? Or null...
STEVE: No, it's just this prefix of $sys$.
LEO: $sys$, okay.
STEVE: That's really the tip-off. Now, we'll have in our
show notes a couple other links because Sony - the good news
is, Sony is getting a huge amount of heat from this. You
know, they are not saying they're not going to use it, but
they do have a page now where they give you a link over to
the XCP-Aurora.com site, where there is something that will
remove this finally from your system.
LEO: And have we verified that it actually does that
without crashing you?
STEVE: No, but I've seen a whole bunch of blog postings
from people who have said that - and explained that what it
does is it'll - the other thing is it has to install one
more thing. It works with an Active-X control, so you have
to give it permission to install an Active-X control in your
system in order to offer you the Service Pack 1 upgrade to
this heinous bit of software. And then if you say No, it
has an option for deleting it.
LEO: Brian Krebs, who writes the Security Fix column in The
Washington Post, says that Sony says that any CD labeled
"Content Enhanced and Protected," and it would be on the
front and the back of the product, could contain this
rootkit. And he said that he did a quick search on
Amazon.com site. There are 24,000 of these CDs out there.
STEVE: Oh, boy.
LEO: So it's a serious issue.
STEVE: Well, and the other thing that's really interesting,
too, is that Mark technically violated digital rights
management law...
LEO: The DMCA, yeah.
STEVE: Exactly, the DMCA, by figuring this out.
LEO: It was illegal to do what he did. And this is the
problem. This is a situation that our lawmakers have gotten
us into because they're in the pockets of the recording
industry. And the recording industry clearly has no
scruples when it comes to protecting their intellectual
property. Well, I hope that Sony does the right thing and
pulls it back. Nevertheless, that means there's still
probably a lot of computers infected out there.
STEVE: Well, and many people have written to the groups and
the bands whose CDs did this to their machine.
LEO: Good.
STEVE: Typically, these people have responded that they had
no idea...
LEO: No, of course not.
STEVE: ...this was going to be done.
LEO: And unfortunately the bands, in their defense, have no
control of this at all. I'm sure their contracts, you know,
specify that Sony can do anything they want on the CD.
STEVE: Right.
LEO: You'd have to be a pretty big band to say no to Sony
in this case. Well, I think what it means to me is that I'm
going to be much less likely to buy a CD from Sony from now
on. Certainly, if you put an audio or - this is, by the
way, true of movie CDs in another way. There's a player
that movie CDs install, the InterActual Player, that is
known to disable CD-cracking software, DVD-cracking software
on your system. So I guess the bottom line is, if you're
using a computer to watch movies or listen to music, and it
asks you may it install some software, to say no. And I
would imagine that holding the Shift key down would still
work in preventing that software from running.
STEVE: Yes, that will prevent the autorun. Now, one other
nice feature - again, this goes back to what we've often
talked about security-wise, if you do not have
administration rights, this cannot install itself.
LEO: Oh, very interesting, another reason not to run as
root.
STEVE: Exactly. So many administrators have mentioned in
various postings that users came to them when they installed
some music on their machine, or tried to just play some
music on their machine at work, because the work machines
were locked down and their employees were running without
administrative rights, this junk would not install itself on
their machine. And Sony has on their site, actually has
pages explaining, here's how you add administrative rights
because you're going to have to have those in order to use
our little player with our music CDs.
LEO: Oh. Appalling. Appalling. And this is just, I mean,
just appalling. Well, we've met the enemy, and he is
Sony/BMG. I hope people are listening and write to Sony,
write to the bands. And I think the best thing to do is at
this point stop buying Sony CDs. In fact, I wouldn't buy a
CD that says "Contents Enhanced and Protected" on it of any
kind. Do not buy a CD that says it's copy-protected.
STEVE: Well, in fact, a number of people, posts in the
various blogs said, you know, way to go, Sony, you've really
made me want to legitimately purchase music now.
LEO: Yeah. This is, of course, what we've talked about.
And we talked about this on TWiT. It's just turning people
into criminals. You do this, you go far enough, people are
going to stop buying music.
STEVE: Right.
LEO: Well, Steve, I thank you for the update on this. It
couldn't have been more timely that we covered rootkits. I
would encourage people to go back to Episode 9, if they
haven't heard it, when we talk about the rootkits and the
potential problems. And here it is, three episodes later,
and one of the biggest companies in the world is foisting
them on us.
STEVE: Well, and what's neat is that, you know, we have
talked about, and there exist, tools that will find these.
And now, thanks to all the furor which this has generated,
there is a safe removal tool from the authors of the
software, which, you know, always...
LEO: If you trust them.
STEVE: ...ultimately comes along afterwards just due to
end-user demand.
LEO: Well, but as we know from other software quote
"removal tools" that the spyware companies gave us, you
can't always trust them to do the right thing and remove
their software properly.
STEVE: Well, and here's an interesting issue, too, Leo.
Will the current anti-spyware and future anti-rootkit
scanners label this as a rootkit?
LEO: Right. Because of course in the past they've bowed to
commercial pressures and said, oh, well, I guess it's not a
rootkit if Sony's doing it.
STEVE: Yeah, I mean, so in terms of the standard
non-supertechie rootkit scanner stuff, the stuff that the
typical end-users run, will it deliberately ignore the Sony
DRM rootkit and not tell somebody that it's on their
system...
LEO: Just appalling.
STEVE: ...or not?
LEO: It's just appalling. And in fact it ought to because
it's not - whether you think Sony's benign or not, it's not
merely Sony protecting its DRM. It's so badly done that it
gives a backdoor to any hacker who wants to hide files on
your system.
STEVE: And has been known to create unstable booting
situations where people are getting blue screens every so
often when they boot, for reason of not being able to find
this aries.sys driver.
LEO: Once again, I'm going to go out and run
RootkitRevealer on all my systems and make sure I didn't
accidentally install it. And if I find any Sony/BMG disks,
I'm going to put a pile in the backyard. Anybody wants to
bring theirs over, we'll be burning them later tonight.
STEVE: Well, and if nothing happens between now and next
week's Security Now! podcast, we'll do our third installment
on how to be really, really secure with wireless networks.
LEO: Good. Unless something else breaks. Yeah. But
that's part of the mission of this show is to give you the
latest breaking news, as well as, of course, tutorials on
all of the fundamentals of security.
More information on this topic and all of our Security Now!
podcasts, both in high-quality and 16KB versions, as well as
transcripts, are available at Steve's site,
GRC.com/securitynow.htm, that's the URL. Steve, I want to
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redirect that I use never changes, it's leo.am/podcasts/sn.
It did point to a site which has been changed. So make sure
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STEVE: I'll do it right now.
LEO: Yeah, because we want to make sure everybody gets a
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Your information couldn't be more timely. This is important
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Copyright (c) 2005 by Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte. SOME
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One of the music boards I frequent has been discussing this over the past week or so. This was brought on by the Sony 30th anniversary edition of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run. Many of the posters had bought 1 of the 20 or so titles that Sony had released. While a few had no problems, many had other problems ranging from the computers locking up to 3 of the folks have the PC's actually crash. These user who I have been interacting with on this newsgroup for the last 7 years are from very tech savy to those that can hardly do anything other than surfing the net. The sentiment there was to boycott any DRM protected/DRM related stuff coming down the pike. This is the kind of perception that has to change if any sort of propriety or security oriented applications don't work flawlessly. That's going to be tough when at this point you have so many older machines still in use.
Dave
Ramsey actually the STM did nothing to the shareprice. The report came out July 11th it rose .11 and proceeded to drop to within .04 of the price prior to the announcement within 5 days. On July 25th Wave closed at 1.25 which was 4 days prior to the Atmel/Wave announcement which was huge in it's own right. It closed that day at 1.17. The following week it traded above that 1.17 all five days. Opened the following Monday at 1.13 and it has been sideways and downhill pretty much ever since. The high after the Atmel announcement was 1.22. There was one day at 1.25 two days before the announcement with Atmel. Both of these were huge Even the Seagate announcement on June 14th only bolstered the price .02 for 3 days afterwards before a drop in price followed.
The moral is they need $$$ attached contracts, not OEM announcements
No I am not selling, nor am I buying. The status of a revenue producing contract is unknown. The probability of another shelf offering was talked about. Even the deffered revenue was lower this quarter than last. Not once after this CC did I bash, skew the message, or try to manipulate anything. Look anything of substance that came out of the CC is going to pay off down the road. SKS reiterated that we are gaining traction. I like the sound of that as much as the next guy. But traction isn't going to help in the near term. And that to equates to very few new investors coming in, which perpetuates the churning over and over of this stock by the same players. Given what was reported at the CC I see no reason for Wave to be trading other than where they are now or lower.
Dave
Doma I should have clarified. I meant new models as a whole, not a TPM push. I think we are at least a year away from anything happening consumerside. What is happening for the most part isn't even on the radar screens. I have gone into 3 different PC retailers where you can have your own PC built and purposely asked them without giving them an Intel motherboard number that I wanted a new PC built with a TPM inside-even said trusted platform module and after I got theslackjawed response they said they would get back to me. I haven't heard from 1 yet.
Ramsey so true. The main thing that keeps getting lost here is that now there is something tangible to hang your hat on. Dell has had product for awhile and there is a revenue number on our balance sheet. Gone are the days of movement on a conference announcement or partnership. What happened to the price when the Intel motherboard announcement came out and then Dell. The rise was no where near comparable, yet Dell is next in line as far as the consumer is concerned and Itel for all practical purposes is under the radar, meaning you have to dig to know that Wave is involved-unless you frequent here- whereas Wave shows up on the Dell specs on the computers it is in. For better or worse this this stock will only move on revenue generated numbers from here on out
I believe they need to sustain a buck for 10 days prior to April of 2006
Ramsey in theory I agree. However we are already halfway through the 4th quarter. There are maybe 20 trading days or left that matter until the end of the quarter if you take out those surrounding the holidays. The push on new models of PC's should have already started in earnest to capture the holiday shopping season. It's here folks, don't believe it, the Toy's R Us and Target and WalMart toy catalogs were in the Sunday papers here over the last 2 weeks. I don't see any models of PC entering the market until 06 that could affect our bottom line this year in a positive way.
Dave
CMF per the most recent SEC filing
The remaining availability under this Shelf Registration, after subtracting the $18,719,030 in gross proceeds from the financings referred to above, is approximately $6,280,000, of which $1,096,147 is reserved for the unexercised warrants which expire on January 30, 2006. It is also likely that we will be required to raise additional capital through financings over and above the remaining availability of this shelf registration to the extent that financings under the shelf plus revenues over the ensuing twelve month period do not cover our operating expenses.
An additional source of cash to fund operations for the period will likely come from the sales of its marketable securities, valued as of September 30, 2005 at approximately $69,216 which consist of 59,670 shares of Saflink’s common stock. Wave may sell some or all of its holdings in Safllink, as needed to fund its operations for the twelve-month period ending September 30, 2006.
subracting the money for unexecrcised warrants leaves them with 5,183,853 on the shelf which would translate to approx.
6,400,000 shares
Zen some people patience is going to be tested here, that's for sure. It saddens me when I think of how many folks have thrown caution to the wind and just piled dollar after dollar here, maybe the only investment cash they have looking for the big score. We all make our own choices that's for sure. I don't think I have bought any shares for nearly 2 years and I don't plan on buying anymore ever. I have a position that I am comfortable with bust or boom, that's all I could hope for. Probably the most salient thing I have ever seen posted here was a while back when somebody stated that the investors who will reap the benefits will be the newest in. If this keeps spinning it's wheels into late 06/07 I think the few longs left, and the long time traders will find that to be true.
Dave
Wave will be battling the delisting notice right up to the wire this time. We need to face the reality of the situation. Given the outrageous expectations for revenue this quarter and the reality of another PP coming, more longs will be pairing their holdings before the end of this year. I heard nothing of note from the CC that would be happening before the end of this year. We could very well be trading in a .50 to .60 range or less before the end of the year. Any announcement of another OEM would be nice and might provide a shareprice boost, but now we also have something to compare this to, the Dell announcement. A comparisson can be made to Dell and revenues that have been provided by that. Granted they have been healthy compared to what Wave has booked in the past, but no where near the revs that have been predicted by many here, not even close to what was speculated even 4 months ago. Regardless of who that OEM may be, the market share held by that manufacturer will be far less than what is held by Dell and that figure can by estimated accordingly lower. These factors combined with the fact that the clocks has started ticking will make it tough to avoid this time. Chances are they will avoid it because this company is like a cat with nine lives, but it will probably be in the eleventh hour.
Scorpio I agree. There was a different tone to his presentation, I don't know if exhuberance is the right word, but there was definetly a palpable difference. I also took away a fourth quarter that would provide more of the same. There seemed to be a greater emphasis focused towards mid 2006. I still think there is much ground to be covered due to the uncertainty of how these products are going to be marketed. The arguements are still pointed to wether it will be the consumer space or the enterprise space. There is one know enterprise user as of today's date. Dell is the major player and the product is still hard to order unless you know EXACTLY what you are looking for. The product is not being bundled yet, which is a major stumbling block as I see it. Look if your a consumer and you have no idea what this new technology can do and the explanation provided by a sales rep still leaves you in the dark, you are going for the Norton or MacAfee because you have seen that product on the shelf at major retailers. There are still tons of folks that don't have a PC at the home yet. Sure there are a lot of PC's in the marketplace, I have 4 here my kids school has probably 5 or 6 hundred, so there is still a massive potential market of 1st time PC owners. There is still a lot of traction to be gained among those that own already, let alone the latecomers. We'll know that the big push is hear when the print and media ads start trumpeting it. Having it in every manufacturers box won't mean a thing if you don't know it's there. Wave didn't plan on just taking up real estate on the motherboard and that's it. They need these things turned on. And in time they will be. The heavy lifting will still be going on into next year.
Dave
What do you mean you can't quote the number of pilot programs? That should be at his fingertips!!
You better believe I know that! We have never seen the formal announcenment that I think many folks were expecting last quarter with Gateway, which will come soon. Could you imagine how in the dark we would be without the fantastic DD that turns up here on an almost daily basis?
Jake that is a valid point. The revenue I was considering was what was booked this quarter not this quarter AND the deferred revs. I still think the rethinking should not begin at the very minimum for some next quarter. I won't begin to think that until after Q2 0f 2006. I think there was still way to much positioning and other things going on this quarter to get a true read.
Dave
Don't take this as an afront to SKS either. Look, he is dealing with a ton of variables which have more control over the rise and fall of this company than any one thing that goes on inside the Wave enclave. Steven's exhuberance often gets the best of him, which I think 99% of people in his shoes would radiate the same given what he knows and we don't. But that dosen't change the precarious position that Wave is in and it's dependence on others. It's nice to hear it from Steven, but until I see it on paper I wouldn't bet the house on anything, and I'll get that warm fuzzy feeling from my flanel comforter, thank you.
Dave
Don't cite SKS as your proof. We could get into a pissing contest over what he said that has not come to pass. He also said we would have an OEM last quarter as well. We will let the numbers speak for themselves. It is fine to think I am wrong, I hope I am wrong too. But to site SKS for your proof that the quarter would be higher on his word alone when he has absolutely no control over what the resellers are going to do is just plain foolish.
The volume is not indicative of that.
I have a feeling the revs will be less than the last quarter. We never got the OEM wew were looking for. Through the DD work here we have deduced it to be Gateway, but that will not bring in anything for Q3. I don't think you can discount it being the summer months quarter either. There was a problem for some finding the stuff via Dell unless you were led there from somebody here or had an SKU number. Even their sales reps had trouble locating the product unless the consumer gave them a SKU. There was software backorders. That could be a good or bad thing. If I were a retailer, I would not have quantities of this product on hand not knowing how well this product was going to be accepted into the marketplace. I don't think any of this is Wave's fault. This is just the things that happen at the begining of a new product cycle. I believe we also saw the start of the 1.2's plus software upgrades this quarter as well. Q4 is the one I am looking forward to, but my gut tells me it ain't going to be today. BELIEVE ME, I hope I am wrong, and will post as much.
Dave
In a game of poker if you are dealt two aces face down they are known as pocket aces.
Vader, you don't want pocket aces. Anybody who's played serious poker knows that hand seperates you from your money quicker than anything.
Is that a TRUSTED bong Barge?
Zen maybe I should not have responded it directly towards your post. That seems to be the tone taken when this sort of discussion arises. If I had the time I could pull more than a handful of these to back it up.
Dave
To think that one should not write anybody, be it a company, writer, or other is just plain wrong. Regardless of the negativity that may be caused be this act, it is within the rights of anybody to do so. This is an investment, made by all here with hard earned money. This is a public company, let's not lose sight of that. They have made press releases, public announcements with other public companies. Investing isn't easy. It isn't easy in this company that's for sure. People feel like there are gaining an edge if they can glean some information from a source other that what they see on line. After so many years here can you really blame them? I know this was about LD and I could really care less who he e-mailed. How many have done the same without posting the correspondence. If Dell knew how many people called just to check on the availability of TPm's or Wave product as a customer, only really not buying this time, would they be thrilled? One could surmise that if this were true, a higher level of interest could be determined from those calls.
Not everyone invested in this company participates on these boards. The anticipation of the long term holders,traders, lack of news, the folks who still don't fully understand what the company is offering, and anxiety all contribute to the search for some answers and confirmation that we are doing the right thing. Bottom line is that these incidents end when revenues flow. Until then, let the inquiries keep coming. If this public company can't survive the poking, prodding,conjecture and speculation then it should have stayed a private company avoiding such scrutiny. As long term shareholders, we have seen the focus of the company shift many times over the past 7 or so years. This hasn't helped matters. These questions,inquiries, and critisisms should be the easier obstacles to maneuver than shifting an industry.
Dave