Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
BF...
At one point a few weeks ago following one of our exchanges you suggested we revisit our discussions at a later point which I took as one with merit so I've been going easy with you until we have more info on Wave's status past what is public ie. waiting on sales announcements.
On player's point on the immediacy or imminence behind Solms' "stand by for announcements" three months ago, perhaps you can defer to him for his opinion on whether IT deals that appear certain can drag for this long. As New Wave posted yesterday there could be OEM partners involved lengthening the timeline. Never having been in the industry I'm not an expert on the sales cycles.
Quite a lot of buying going on with the stock. Any ideas on that?
hi player...
I wanted to respond to you post, your response to my request to you on how you might have handled Solms' situation with respect to stating goals. Your post was lost yesterday but I liked your idea around stating a target date for CFBE/profitability and doing it in such a way that if necessary it could be adjusted forward without losing credibility.
We can discuss strategies for communicating goals and targets but I'm sure all agree that in the end what only matters is the organization Solms builds, achieving sales and taking the company to CFBE/profitability. As I see it his CEO communication skills will evolve over time.
Here's a Q&A from the May 12 Q1 call where the word "target" comes into play. Not to return to the debate on stating dates but this does show that indeed he didn't state a target CFBE date at this time although per your idea this could have been a good time to do so.
Robert Meier: Yeah, Bill, I'd like you to comment on what is your timeframe, your target date, your internal goal that you have set for your own management team to reach cash flow breakeven? And finally, how close is Wave to completing the CSG evaluation and approval process?
Bill Solms: Okay, so we're not giving guidance on the call so I can't share with you the specific internal target that we have for being cash flow positive. I'll tell you we have one and I'll tell you that I hammer it into the team every time we talk and it is achievable. And I'm looking forward to being able to announce that to you when that occurs. But I can't give you guidance on that right now.
I wasn't sure what you meant by how the closing remarks in the last CC including "stand by for announcements" left you "scratching your head". I took the comment to be a clear indication he was certain deals would close, not if but when, but not able to commit to a date. May or may not have been an ideal communication strategy but pretty clear imo the message.
but frankly, wave's performance is so poor that however you dice it, it's still dismal.
Lots of companies do less than Wave's billings/q. If the company laid off x number of employees they'd have enough cash flow to support operations.
It's a question for Solms and Shepard to align the risk of continued negative cash flow with increasing billings sufficiently to support the size company they are today, but to state Wave's performance is just poor is imo both unfair and inaccurate. For one thing it doesn't account for better cost controls, improved product development, sales staffing and marketing. They do have product and solutions for which there is demand as evidenced by the sales they do achieve but it's neither enough to support the size company they continue to be nor is it in line with what management perceives the potential to be.
I agree that so far other than the gov't customer and public references to an existing VSC customer base, that Solms and Shepard's efforts have yet to boost sales above stagnated levels but that doesn't mean what is presumed to be an improved sales pipeline won't produce. If one wants to take the position that until sales ramp up to higher levels that "the company's performance is so poor that no matter how one dices it, it's still dismal", that is one's perogative but imo it doesn't assign any merit to the changes Solms and Shepard have brought about.
solms doesn't seem to me to be a carrot dangler. but that doesn't mean he can know what lies ahead with certainty either. i trust he is honest but he has made forecasting mistakes and will do so. his approach to product development sounded right to me.
BF and I have gone back and forth on that ad nauseum and I stick with my contention that Solms neither stated a CFBE date nor a goal. Some would maintain an end of '14 CFBE goal was implied relating to the $9.9m PP but imo that was as much a matter of looking at the cash burn at that point and understanding if CFBE didn't occur by the end of '14 that cash could again be low. As with BF, please provide a quote and I'll concede the "forecasting".
major orders are lightning bolts. you don't see them coming. and if you do, then you know things you shouldn't and you cannot honestly make a claim on prescience. of course, you can make money that way. but with a risk attached.
Well, the next strongest thing to "knowing things one shouldn't" is to listen to what the CEO or the company publicly states. Things like "large organizations need Wave", significant numbers of VSC 2.0 opportunities in various stages of development or a VSC 2.0 gov't customer when the customer already had a primary means of authentication. Also, VSC 2.0 itself was a significant rebuild of an existing product with the obvious purpose being to bring a TPM-based solution to a market latent with demand for a solution superior to authentication tokens and other solutions. There was actually a formal product launch with the CTO presenting, a standard in the industry which under Sprague the company had never accomplished. While none of the above equates to sales until they are announced (past the gov't customer) it could adjust the risk factor downwards varying degrees depending on the investor.
Yes I did go long early in this investment. That is true.
you have quite a recovery to make before you break even on a more cautious approach!
Depends on what happens going forward and whether or not I loaded up down here.
So do you still see "carrot dangling", only this time by Solms?
and please, l don't think it's purposeful but you treat my inferior intellect w/ condescention.
tkc, I too noticed you were being condescended to and I don't know why, at least not based on your qualifications relating to this investment.
Debit AR (with the value of the invoice)
Credit Sales (amount of the invoice related to the current period)
Credit Deferred Income (amount of the invoice related to future periods)
when the invoice is paid (maybe sometime between 0 and 60 days) the following happens:
Debit Cash
Credit AR
when you reach the next period this happens:
Debit Deferred Income
Credit Sales
you don't know this. that's okay. you can keep on saying that sales = billings. i don't care too much. but billings is an entry in accounts receivable in the balance sheet. and sales is an entry in the income statement which generates revenues.
And please, l don't think it's purposeful but you treat my inferior intellect w/ condescention. I concede that you are smarter than l. I gotta go out, back later in the week if l ever get shoveled out. Context and cheers.
It could be a question at these near record level lows of the stock of who is able to identify emerging "demand" for Wave's solutions and Management's potential to exploit the market vs. those who are either unable to identify it or are unable or unwilling to take the risk. The problem with waiting to confirm "demand vs. supply" is that if demand does emerge in the form of a couple initial large orders the price could become $2.00 overnight, not the current $.82. And if the pipeline kept producing it will go higher. Can't have it both ways, right?
In any case it's not really a question of "who's smarter" but one of risk taking.
whether you are interested in sales or billings, wave's performance has been dreadful.
I agree with all the dilution and two reverse splits the performance of the stock has been dreadful but at the same time the company did go from less $100k in annual billings in the '90's to a high of $32.8m in 2011. But yes the inability that the previous management showed in leading the company to operate within it's cash flow limits and to sustain the growth/maintenance of billings/revenue led to a horrible stock performance and huge losses for investors.
billings is something. it is billings. it would be a useful number if anyone knew what it was. but since they don't, it's confusing. some folks think it represents cash in the door. others that it is sales.
Perhaps then you should contact Wave and ask why they began stating "total billings". They put in every "Consolidated Supplemental Schedule (Unaudited)" since I believe Q4 '09 coinciding with the first GM order. Basically it's the invoicing done each quarter which for those not concerned with the technicals of accounting approximates cash flow. The biggest disrepancy between total billings and revenue for Wave's software sales is that for the large class order (5000 licenses and higher), billings are not booked as revenue in one piece being taken instead over the following 12 month period. The first GM order was the first large class order explaining why they went to stating total billings beginning circa Q4 '09.
We know you know all the above, we simply agree with Solms that billings (a.k.a. cash flow) needs to increase about $3m/q to BE. In accounting terms that may be an over simplification, but money in the door so to speak is what is needed to stop the dilution.
tkc, you and I understand "billings" does not in accounting terms precisely equate to "money in the door" but for all intents and purposes it's close enough.
Solms closing the Q3 call:
As I stated before, the only thing that really matters at this point is our ability to launch, or to show that we have sales billings. Well, it’s the most important thing, anyway, and so I encourage you to stand by for those announcements. Thank you very much for joining the call and we’ll be talking to you all soon.
Hi all. It seems to me this on-going discussion revolving around Player's post-it is conformation of the absense of anything worth intercourse.
A number of us think the post should be unhighlighted, in my case the belief being that many don't need a 16 month-old reminder of the previous CEO's failure. With a new CEO aboard and fundamental changes in the company having been implemented (which may or may not prove successful) it's time to move on.
It's not fair imo for a moderator to impose their views on the board by highlighting their own post if a majority of readers oppose it. The fair thing would be a survey. If a majority wants it, it stays, otherwise it's bias being imposed by a moderator not unlike contrarian posts being deleted by a moderator.
Thanks for providing that perspective, however as with you it's not exactly my issue. My only issue is billings and that they accelerate to CFBE and beyond. Really, billings have been the historical issue. Without them there is a cash burn leading to dilution.
Personally I consider my post a valuable follow-up to player1234's, as much an addendum as a rebuttal. Mine provides a picture albeit simple of billings and the cumulative dilution beginning 2000 (more than 13:1). Player's really just shows the decline in SP/market cap during SKS's tenure the beginning of which occurs during the dot-com bubble resulting in an absurd $50 high for a stock underlying a company that posted $333k in revenues that year...ridiculous. Imo viewing in retrospect the decline of WAVX from dot-com highs to normal levels is no more meaningful than purporting in retrospect that both with and without reverse splits that WAVX was realistically sub-$1.00-$5.00 max. with the closest to a justified high coming following the GM, BASF and BP sales.
Btw in your example of diluting 21.1m shares with 3m, I get a different number:
3/21.1= 14.2% dilution
Say one owns 10% before the dilution. Run the ownership after the dilution and I think you'll find 14.2% decline in ownership is about right.
No, it measures the the decline of the stock/market cap starting with the time that the prior CEO took control of the company. The value of the company and the share price at the time are facts. There is nothing that says it "should have" been higher or lower.
I know, but the point is most of us had either small positions in 2000 (mine was zero) or have averaged down or liquidated and/or reinvested, so viewing the loss of market cap since 2000 is of reduced meaning or none at all. If one's entire investment is measured from 2000 that would be one thing but in most cases it isn't.
Few people if any contest your point about the stock's miserable performance under Sprague especially when measured from it's dot-com bubble high but it doesn't do much good to view that now especially without historical revenues/shares outstanding data. Competent newcomers are able to look at the stock's history including see the reverse splits, the company's current finances, the products and the potential market for them and make their own decisions about the prospects or lack of them for success going forward.
I agree with your opinion of Player. He has remained objective and civil to all and his posts are always on the money--none more so than the pinned post we have been discussing. Wave investors have lost 98% of their investment since SKS was appointed CEO by his father up to the date he was replaced by William Solms.
But that's if their cost basis is $36.62 ($439.50 reverse splits-adjusted), right? Only a small portion if any of one's basis today is likely to have any of those shares which is my point about player1234's post ie. it measures the decline of the stock/market cap starting in the year of the highest price of the stock.
My only "commentary" on the post is that it traces the decline in SP and market cap taken from the year of a notoriously overvalued market ie. the dot-com bubble, whereas in retrospect it's easy to understand that WAVX, underlying a company with essentially zero revenues, never should have traded to a high of $50 pre-RS, rather it should have hovered at levels closer to historic lows including those years before the dot-com bubble. From that perspective the stock should have been like WYY never going higher than a couple bucks only with a couple reverse splits thrown in.
The above aside, my post provides accurate information on annual billings and shares outstanding beginning in the year 2000 (of player1234's post) through 2013, providing an accurate picture of dilution (more than 13:1) and the company's evolution from essentially zero revenues in 2000 to today's levels.
I doubt many could have indicated prior to reviewing my numbers exactly what the dilution actually is ie. reverse split-adjusted 3.9m shares outstanding in 2000 to today's 51.4m = just higher than 13:1. Not pretty but still ticking.
Imo the rebuttal should be highlighted and posted under the original. That would be the equitable thing to do.
Whereas your analysis is meant to cover the previous CEO's tenure, the drop in value of the investment measured from the year of the dot-com bubble IS a great deal less meaningful imo given that a company with essentially zero revenues was trading to a high of around $50 when it should have been basically a penny stock. Imo many readers will agree. That's why the post should be highlighted as a rebuttal to yours. Your's and barge's choice, however for this to remain an open and fair forum it should be done.
Rebuttal to: "The cost to investors since 24-March, 2000"
The post is factual, and I think player1234 has earned the right to decide whether to highlight it.
"Factual" is based on measuring the performance of the stock from it's dot-com overvalued high in the year 2000 where on March 24 the stock closed at $36.62 ($439.50 1-3 and 1-4 reverse split adjusted).
Is a dot-com valuation (2000 revenues= $333k a.k.a. zero) a meaningful starting reference point for the performance of the investment or should the performance be discounted to account for the dot-com valuation and a.k.a. zero revenues? In the year 2000 absent the dot-com overvaluation would/should WAVX have traded pre-reverse splits @ e.g. $.50, $1.00, $2.00? Was it not delisted years earlier trading below $1.00?
Dilution has significantly devalued the investment; just over 13:1 to date not including fully exercised employee options and outstanding warrants.
Current shares outstanding after 1/27/15 PP= 51.4m
BILLINGS/ AVERAGE SHARES OUTSTANDING
-------- --------------------------
2000: $ 333k/ 3.9m
2001: $ 692k/ 4.2m
2002: $ 447k/ 4.3m
2003: $ 189k/ 4.7m
2004: $ 209k/ 5.8m
2005: $ 1.0m/ 6.9m
2006: $ 3.1m/ 9.2m (1:3 reverse split June 2006)
2007: $ 6.3m/ 11.7m
2008: $ 10.0m/ 13.9m
2009: $ 20.9m/ 17.1m
2010: $ 32.4m/ 20.0m
2011: $ 32.8m/ 21.1m
2012: $ 28.9m/ 24.1m
2013: $ 24.3m/ 29.8m (1:4 reverse split June 2013)
Notes:
1. 2013 year-ending total shares outstanding= 35.0m
2. Average shares outstanding 2000-2005 and 2000-2012 are 1:3 and 1:4 reverse split adjusted respectively.
Like all longs I don't need to read the post (and haven't) to understand the extent of my losses and the mistakes I made. For folks in my situation the post can only serve as a painful reminder. Imo I believe it serves more of a "I/we told you so" purpose than as a warning to newbies incapable of doing their own research and it's darn well going to remain prominently posted until such time as one of the board's moderators who created it determines it's no longer necessary to "educate" newcomers or to stop "reminding" those who have suffered the most.
I agree, haven't read it and won't. It serves as a painful reminder imo. As if we need one.
Looks like there's an issue for Wave VSC with the new Windows 10.
Backwards compatibility loses its advantage.
How's that?
I know in my workplace and in my spouses' workplace when an upgrade is made its across the board for machines-no mixing of OS because all of the software that is used within that business must be compatible among all machines. Not having an extensive knowledge of the how's or why's, I also know that folks that work from home also have PC's or laptops that are compatible with what is being used at work so they can remote access from home, at least in my experience.
Windows still dominates the enterprise PC computing market. There is some Mac and Wave products support it although Mac doesn't have TPMs, however Wave will support them should they show up.
As for mobile devices, many enterprise have now deployed Mobile Device Management (MDM) creating an environment where their mobile devices have a different management infrastructure than do their PCs, in turn creating a scenario where it's feasible to deploy a TPM-based authentication platform for PCs and maintain their non-TPM platform for mobiles such as smartphones.
I think the interoperability may have been oversold, especially now with the major OS providing tools to manage the TPM.
OS's don't manage the TPM, not Windows, not Google, not any of them, at least not for the end user. You're confusing OS's implementing TPMs in the OS with managing TPMs for the end user be it an individual or in a multi-user domain (e.g. an enterprise network). I'm not aware that Windows implements it's own TPM by taking ownership of it. Traditionally, the TCG requires ownership of the TPM to be taken by an end user (e.g. device owner e.g of a PC) in order to activate it. It does seem in Chrome Books that the OS implements the TPM for it's own security purposes thus taking it's own ownership of the TPM with no involvement or control of the device's end user/owner. Chrome Books would thus require a second TPM for the end user/device owner. Windows devices have only one TPM and only the PC owner can take ownership of it. Actually for Windows Phone that might be different ie. the MNO could play a role in ownership in TPM Mobile.
The questions for me are these. If a business entity regardless of size is using one operating system, how are you going to sell them on the benefit of using wave when they don't even know who they are?
To achieve a better undersatnding of the TPM play Solms and team are attempting, I suggest folks google "2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for User Authentication". There can be found a pdf of the entire Gartner report which describes in detail the market within which Wave's VSC 2.0 competes. The "Magic Quadrant Leaders" are among Wave's main competitors.
24601...
While Wave's VSC 2.0 solution enables both device and user-based authentication, it competes directly in the enterprise user only authentication market where the leading vendors including RSA The Security Division of EMC, Vasco, SafeNet and CA Technologies supply mainly tokens-type solutions ie. hardware external authenticators (expensive to deploy and maintain) and their embedded software counterparts (spoofable).
To clarify, Wave's VSC 2.0 competes against primarily user authentication tokens including those provided by the market leading vendors referenced above. It turns out the market in which these solutions are sold is described by the "Gartner Magic Quadrant for User Authentication", however VSC 2.0 because it implements the TPM which is bound to the device is principally "device-based authentication" and only sequentially becomes "user-based authentication" after the TPM is bound to the device and users are permissioned to the device via the TPM. By contrast conventional authentication tokens such as an RSA SecureID are not bound to the device and as a result if an attacker spoofs the credentials they can gain access to the network via their own unauthorized device which can't happen with device-bound TPM-secured identity.
Securing both device and user identity in the TPM is inherently superior to any form of non-device bound user authentication, the only issue remaining is that TPMs are still not readily available on phones, however we know this has not prevented early deployers of the Wave VSC solution from moving forward on those devices which have TPMs ie. PCs including notebooks and some pads. In many cases the customer has deployed a separate MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution (now often software tokens ie. "phone-as-a-token") for their phones and consequently it's feasible to move forward with a VSC 2.0 on their non-phone devices.
User authentication tokens come in two varieties, external hardware tokens which are expensive to deploy and maintain, and embedded software tokens which while less expensive to deploy and maintain are more hackable than hardware toens, and Wave VSC 2.0 competes directly against both offering an ROI as a replacement solution.
http://next.wave.com/
24601...
The best way to look at Wave's current TPM-based solutions opportunity is to reduce the issue of "TPM usage" to enterprises using them in an analogous way to how mobile network operators (MNOs) use the SIM card to hardware credential the identities of their account holders to devices such that they become "known authorized" devices for the purpose of accessing the MNO's network. For example with my credentials as a Verizon user secured in the hardware of a SIM card, Verizon can absolutely be assured that only my authorized device and the devices of other authorized account holders can access the network. This is because for all intents and purposes it's impossible to spoof or impersonate user keys held in hardware. Short of transferring a SIM card to an unathorized device, against which there are safeguards, there is essentially no way to hack or impersonate SIM hardware-secured identity.
An enterprise can use a TPM in an essentially identical fashion to how an MNO uses a SIM ie. once devices (and users in turn bound to them) are credentialed into the hardware of a TPM, only "known authorized" devices can access the corporate network, completely eliminating the "unauthorized user using an unauthorized device" attack vector.
Although Windows 8 provides the functions to provision a TPM and a virtual smart card, enterprises require management tools from an ISV such as Wave to both deploy and manage enterprise-scale deployment of devices and users.
While Wave's VSC 2.0 solution enables both device and user-based authentication, it competes directly in the enterprise user only authentication market where the leading vendors including RSA The Security Division of EMC, Vasco, SafeNet and CA Technologies supply mainly tokens-type solutions ie. hardware external authenticators (expensive to deploy and maintain) and their embedded software counterparts (spoofable).
Player, thank you very much for that.
It did occur to me earlier that to even make the pilot/POC stage that Risk Management has already taken a look so time is not wasted with an unqualified vendor. That being the case if the decision maker ends up requesting procurement, the vendor would already be part way there or better on passing the risk management evaluation.
When you allude to multi vendors being part of an RFI/RFP, in Wave's case I would think they are often poking their head in the door where there is an incumbent vendor or in-house solution and no RFI/RFP out, they are simply "cold calling" a customer or following up a lead.
So what exactly do risk assessment personnel request from the vendor if they don't have access to financial info? If I was doing risk assessment I'd want a notion about cash flow ie. positive or negative and how much. What would be the point of doing vendor risk assessment if a some determination of financial capability couldn't be made?
Are you able to provide a range of time vendor risk assessment takes and a range for when price negotiation begins to when a contract is signed and a PO arrives?
I'll admit I'm not familar with how a company discloses financials to a risk manager. I thought it could be as simple as revealing a cash balance at any point in time but I suppose it could involve disclosing only publicly available info such as quarter ending filings. In any case my point stands that raising funds from a shelf registration or even that the shelf exists in the first place should for all I know demonstrate the ability to raise cash to continue operations going forward if that is what risk managers are considering.
Imo my assumptions were well-intentioned. I try to think something through before posting even if I may not have it quite right and always stand to be corrected.
A prospective customer can't request to see the vendor's finances e.g including their cash position?
Did I imply Wave revealed to prospective customers about doing a PP ahead of it being done? I only said they were probably already aware of the low cash not that a PP was to be done.
The risk managers probably already knew the company was low on cash before the equity raise.
I have never met a risk manager who asked a struggling company to raise some capital just to prove they could.
I wasn't suggesting a risk manager asked the company to raise capital to prove they could, I was saying the ability to raise capital when needed shows to pipeline prospects just that, namely the ability to raise capital possibly quelling certain concerns a risk manager might have of the company's ability to maintain operations going forward.
Obviously they raised capital to meet operating expenses due to insufficient cash flow in Q4, that's plain for anyone to see whether it's me, you or a risk manager.
I wrote:
This (today's PP) should provide some kind of a demo to pipeline prospects engaging vendor risk assessment that Wave is capable of raising captial on demand from the shelf to both maintain cash sufficient for operating expenses as well the capability to raise additional capital should it be required to support a growing customer base (addressing a vendor risk assessment factor).
tampa123, on the other hand there IS an established $2b enterprise authentication market with vendors including RSA The Security Divison of EMC, Vasco, Safenet, CA Technologies and a couple others selling more product than the other vendors, primarily various versions of authentication tokens, either external hardware devices or their embedded less secure software versions. The hardware versions are one-dimenional and expensive to maintain while the software versions (also one-dimensional) are less expensive to maintain but far less secure.
No more proclamations of a coming paradigm, visions or promises for what TC can do. No more educating the customer or the market. Simply enter the marketplace with a solution that has superior performance and ROI over what is deployed and sell it.
http://next.wave.com/
Thanks tkc. Perhaps the actual Q3 burn was closer to $2.5m (thank you alea) meaning if Q4 is no higher, cash today is around $5.5m including January's burn. This should provide some kind of a demo to pipeline prospects engaging vendor risk assessment that Wave is capable of raising captial on demand from the shelf to both maintain cash sufficient for operating expenses as well the capability to raise additional capital should it be required to support a growing customer base (addressing a vendor risk assessment factor).
Obviously dilution is sour gapes for shareholders and can't end soon enough. Of course the sales pipeline yielding sustainably higher VSC 2.0 sales to eliminate the burn for subsequent quarters going forward is the cure. Naturally this is the objective.
BF...
We agree there are understandable concerns as time continues to pass without news of CFBE-making billings, however to assume failure at this point means believing the public comments about the pipline and pilots were fabricated or if not that then the product doesn't work and prospects are pulling out.
Trimming expenses significantly, hiring a new CFO and other better qualified executive talent, building a new company culture, taking VSC to a marketable level and updating other products, selling non-essential non-core assets, all of this represents progress imo setting the stage for fulfillment of the goal of delivering a TPM-based solution to the large enterprise segment and CFBE.
Again, goals are not the same as promises. Provide quotes where Solms promises timelines and I'll readily agree he's failed to meet them.
We agree that without the additional $3m in quarterly billings the goal of CFBE remains unfulfilled, where we disagree is that the goal remaining unfulfilled at this point in time consitutes failure.
I know it can all change with a single good sale. But that will not undo the damage to Solms's credibility, nor shore up our confidence in his visions of the future. So, feel free to stand at attention and salute when Lt. Col. (retired) and Gen. Patton march by, lockstep in a lonely parade.
Meanwhile, mostly accusations, unfairness and hyperbole. Lol.
I suspect a few large VSC 2.0 sales will cause to you to revisit your above comments about Solms' credibility and our confidence in his visions for the future? Lol.
When I say Wave "depends upon the adoption of a TC architecture", I am talking about by an enterprise.
From your wording I did take it to mean something broader than an indivdual enterprise or customer. My bad?
Perhaps it helps you to describe the details of adoption in its constituent parts every time you mention a potential customer. For me it is otiose. You make it sound complicated.
Definitely not complicated sounding and certainly not otiose lol to the enterprise IT person the Wave sales person is pitching to.
The word adopt will do just fine as a catch-all when I am writing my own sentences.
I recommend you to write your own too.
Again, since you didn't specify enterprise or customer I took your use of "adopt" to mean something broader than "a customer deploying a TC solution", such as e.g. "the world has to adopt TC for Wave to be successful". Possibly it was your mention of the "politics of the TC market" that threw me off? Certainly not a subject that arises during a Wave customer sales pitch lol.
Wave depends upon the adoption of a TC architecture. So the politics of the TC market is germane to the conversation of Wave's investors.
Wave depends upon the adoption of a TC architecture. So the politics of the TC market is germane to the conversation of Wave's investors.
Not true. TPMs ship standard. A customer needs only to provision their ownership onto the machines, link users to the machines, provision certificates and they have a network access solution e.g. using Wave VSC 2.0. No adoption of architecture per se, simply provision the hardware and use it. You make it sound like the world has to adopt some huge architecture...not the case.
I mentioned back doors before only because it's always possible surveillance agencies could seek them, however there is no indication so far it's happening with TPMs or is even possible without Windows doing something illegal with TCG tech behind closed doors.
As far as SED back doors, I learned from a data recovery vendor at Storage Visions that SEDs are by far their biggest challenge but if they go to Wave, Wave can do something. I think it has to be a Wave-managed SED which most are. Interesting.
My comments about potential large customers advancing to procurement are in part based on Solms' comments in the Q3 call about some deals meant to close before the end of Q3, the need large customers have for Wave, challenges around large companies working with small companies and becoming "their partners", around 100 customers in various stages of development (much larger now imo), the video ad campaingn that had just been launched, I take these indications and references as VSC 2.0 resonating in the marketplace. I also confirmed at Storage Visions that there is indeed a growing group of not large customers who have fully deployed Wave VSC.
I am reasonably upbeat and optimistic that there will be some large customers for VSC 2.0, you are not. Each to their own. I do agree without the actual news of a large order, or two or three that it has not happened yet and may never although I am optimistic enough to give "never" a low probablity.
I'm focusing on commercial enterprise which is a major part of the enterprise authentication/data protection market and it's known that Wave's VSC 2.0 pipeline exists in large part in the commercial segment where their major competitors sell most of their product, especially authentication because the gov't has a CAC/PIV smart card infrastructure not external authentication tokens such as RSA SecureID.
I don't consider gov't surveillance of Wave's prospective customers in commercial enterprise to have any bearing on Wave's near-term ability to sell product in the marketplace, although if NSA/CIA/other seek to develop back doors to TPMs and SEDs that could have a future bearing on Wave solutions deployed by their enterprise authentication/data protection customers as well as by those of Wave's competitors.
First, Wave does steadily sell product in the marketplace today albeit on an SMB scale not sufficient to meet expenses.
Second, as has been discussed here ad nauseum we are not far past the VSC 2.0 product launch now, exactly two calendar quarters tomorrow in fact, and it's known that sales cycles to large enterprises generally significantly exceed two quarters. I realize this even now sounds like an excuse and will more so as time passes without a large reported sale, however there have been number of indications, all discussed here, that Wave's solution is resonating in the marketplace to the point that potential large accounts are advancing and have advanced to the procurement phase (refer to Q3 call) which can apparently take some time for final approvals even to large established vendors let alone one with Wave's books. Meanwhile the wait continues.
surveillance and security are competing models that, when unresolved, create tension and prevent progress. the output of the current imbalance is weak security and angry advocacy of privacy rights.
May be, but does this have any bearing on the enterprise authentication or data proetction markets? This is a WAVX board and Wave is in those markets.
so wave may progress if a digital synthesis appears that is focussed on trusted computing. something equivalent to probable cause which allows targetted police work but not broad surveillance.
"So Wave may progress" if their product sales in the enterprise marketplace scale up from current levels.
or wave may progress if its ambitions are narrow enough that they don't offend the surveillance interests of governments.
or it may not progress.
the point is, we cannot know the future.
Stay tuned for VSC 2.0 sales-related news. Hopefully they happen.
technology isn't what this is about. it is about online society and whether technology aligns itself with it. technology is merely an envelope. making an internet that works for users is the letter.
if a person doesn't understand this and simply focusses on wave product specs or tc standards development, of course they cannot understand this marketplace and why it doesn't develop as they have expected. they aren't looking at the market. the market is the confluence of supply and demand.
demand occurs when you offer a product that customers want. you can tell if wave is attracting demand by watching the arc of wave's income.
Observers to Wave need to have a broad overview of the product portfolio and it's range of capabilities, to know what market the products compete in and whether they resonate in the marketplace. Obviously if they don't resonate they require further development. Wave is in a market for which there is demand for competitors' products, a question is are Wave's good enough to compete and take market share from incumbents?
I posted to you:
"Please understand the technology before making bold claims about the gov't impeding the deployment of TC."
Sorry if I offended you with that. I'm tired of hearing the NSA is some big obstacle to deployment when imo it's not a main issue and it's not just you that's beaten that drum. Again, I am sorry. I hope you can admit I do have a point that TC doesn't prevent NSA eavesdropping.
But I must say, all that product research hasn't made anyone much use at forecasting or understanding the market.
Historically I'd agree but hopefully I'm now barking up the right tree since Wave appears to be directly targeting the leaders in the enterprise authentication market. The pre-Solms Wave did not achieve that. Yes, still waiting for results. The value of my (and my wife's) account is a testament to that.
First, I recommend you try to understand what demand is so you don't mistake demand and competition in future.
We've been over that and don't agree.
Also, when you make pronouncements about revenue increasing from year to year, I recommend that in future you should read and try to understand the 10Ks and the 10Qs. They really help. Inventing progress year over year makes a person seem disinterested in reality.
Billings or money in the door is what I use and they did increase year on year 2003-2011 (billings not necessarily revenue) albeit never to CFBE.
Heck, even your ideas of sales cash flow and billing need work.
Never claimed to be an accountant.
Once you are familiar with the concept of demand and Wave's income, then perhaps you can talk about the company's prospects with authority.
Thanks for the tip. Hopefully VSC 2.0 sales scale up allowing me to "talk with authority".