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MIB, fwiw from my perusal of congressional testimony and sworn statements of record, the Generals (Caldwell and Patton) arrived at a cesspool of corruption, abuse, incompetence and negligence (this is Afghan on Afghan stuff we are talking about)... and when they left that had been largely fixed, at least according to reports.
In dispute is their methods, not their efficacy. It has been variably asserted that there was political motivation, some claim the US 2010 midterms, but the LG Caldwell assert politics as well, that their task was going to require the removal of a Afghan General, something only the Afghan President has the authority to do, that it was going to be a difficult and sensitive matter.
Patton claimed his use of the words "stay in your [f*] lane" is a well recognized military phrase instructing one to stay within their expertise/duty (the issue at hand was a lieutenant with a nursing background judging the quality of surgery by looking at an x-ray of a femur, Patton asserts that was the domain of a surgeon, which the lieutenant was not) and the IG seems to acknowledge that use but nevertheless the result was documented that the lieutenant subsequently declined to provide the information on two other patients that (s)he had planned, that the lieutenant felt intimidated, such that the result was effectively one of interference, and interference with an IG communicating info to Congress is against USC. On balance it looks to me (pure speculation) that they did indeed stall, in an effort to accomplish the mission of cleaning up the joint and perhaps (even more speculation) considered the actions of congress to be interference, or at least problematic with respect to the intersection of its timing and their efforts.
At issue for Congress was among other things the misappropriation of tax dollars, if e.g corrupt Afghans were stealing medicine and selling it on the black market (and they apparently were) then the tax payer was being defrauded.
The preponderance of Congressional inquiry regarding cover-up/failure to note or communicate was regarding the several years prior to Gens Caldwell and Patton being assigned there.
Congress seemed to trip over themselves to acknowledge that things had largely been righted, their complaint being why didn't they know sooner.
Me lacking experience with asking foreign leaders to sack their own generals and so on, I just don't know how to interpret MG Patton's role in that context in terms of suitability for a management position at a public tech company.
the hiring of MGPatton may be brilliant, awful, and anywhere in between, I have largely no opinion on that.
wd, exactly. eom
I have experience with retired military officers as managers in non-military positions, and I find the depth of the generalizations being bandied about here to be fundamentally careless.
I have worked with pussy-cat retired military managers, and fire-brand retired military managers, just as I have with both types with managers who have never donned a uniform.
Now if Solms thinks that Wave needs some arse kicking then one could imagine him focusing on some of his military connections for possible recruits. Or not. He (Solms) certainly didn't just leave the military, and has private sector experience as indicated by his resume, so one could imagine he has become familiar with norms and customs in private sector technical companies. Or not.
Again, i don't seek to defend (or attack) the hiring other than to express my unease with increasing costs. I believe actions like this require significant new business ... soon. Given that a COO type position likely goes across the BoDs desk, presumably the notion has been vetted. BICBW. CEOs are given latitude, the job title seems an effort to squeak under the COO designation, and in the case of edge-of-the-cliff turnarounds, perhaps it is best to hire a guy and then let them call the shots.
It should be good fun watching in any event. Solms' behavior certainly broadcasts confidence, which when coupled with a few bucks can get a person a decent cup of coffee.
That is among the styles I have seen from retired military managers in non-military settings, but it is far from uniformly the case, my comments on observed management styles from retired military officers in non-military management positions covered earlier, hence the points, the counter points, word choice, word order and so on.
that wasn't the sentence,
what is being smooshed together is IMO:
"hammer people with portable skills into submission"
and
"It's reached almost a kind of Joke status within Wave right now.. booking odds on the first harassment case in HR."
Given that his last job was as the Harassment Czar, and given that the above sentence references (coincidentally I am sure) harassment, one could (among the many interpretations) suppose that cypher was indicating that within Wave the hiring was a done deal (as that was the topic of the post, the question being responded to) and as an indicator that such hiring was a fait acompli, folks were doing water cooler funnys in reference to his latest professional capacity as Harassment Czar (officially "Director Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office").
Or one could read it as you did that within Wave the hiring of Patton is considered a joke (but that makes the whole reference to harassment and HR entirely out of place in the sentence).
Or one could interpret it to mean that he is a predatory person (pretty bold).
Or one could interpret it to mean good luck to the next one who dares make an HR complaint, in keeping with the accusations regarding silencing whistle-blowers (a distinct possibility).
And so on.
As it pertains to what I was responding to, alea cited a well-connected cypher to support conjecture regarding style, and the above was the only comment i could find from cypher that even remotely related to style, and in the context of the statements by all parties I am unable to interpret ...
"It's reached almost a kind of Joke status within Wave right now.. booking odds on the first harassment case in HR." (provided as a supporting statement regarding the likelihood of a hire)
...with regards to alea's notions regarding suitability to the position.
alea, the only thing I've seen was
" It's reached almost a kind of Joke status within Wave right now.. booking odds on the first harassment case in HR.."
Which I am unable to interpret.
I don't want to be misinterpreted as defending the hire (or attacking it per se), my knee jerk reaction is that Wave was a company of 250 people with 275 VPs (through some miracle of the abacus) and it struck me as hideously top heavy (although I don't know what these titles actually mean). It seemed there was a lot of VP blood on the ground after the last year, and I welcomed that ... but not so as to enable the placement of a new roster of VPs. My issue would only be with upper management vs headcount ratios ... although many did argue for a COO during the SKS years. While Solms has said and appeared to do the right things, his cv was by no means decorated with CEO-COO creds, Patton's is, regardless from where he is sourced.
I'm not inclined to interpret a style about the new guy based on a couple of lines in the press here and there as I am inclined to think that is governed by what they seek to project more than what is, nor am I willing to make much in the way of sweeping assumptions based on sourcing, I just lack experience there. Solms seeks to project a migration towards "professionalism" which is neat, but kinda cliche.
I've watched a fair bit of history T.V., and when one e.g. looks at the characterizations of The Generals prior to D-Day or The American Revolution or The American Civil War, it seems to me that every variety of style was represented (at least according to the historians).
Of course in all of those cases the Generals could shoot deserters, and I expect that particular element of style is off the table for the new guy.
which gets back to the notion of delegating and compartmentalization of expertise. the company has a CTO, and a chief scientist, are these folks relied on to extract/develop/present ideas and if so what role if any does the new guy have in approving those ideas, it could go from next to none to a whole bunch.
NW, that is consistent with the bio(s),
In the last 5 years or so Patton has clearly served in senior executive fashion, Solms more in sales lead fashion.
But Wave's head count is hardly mind numbing, stacking the top requires real business, pretty much today.
It appears Patton was making well over $300k base salary at the end of his military career, I wouldn't hazard a guess as to his current compensation.
I'm with player on this,
one can't keep stacking the top unless one has real business. As far as the particular individual, don't really have an opinion, I am not familiar enough with how the part of the military Patton spent his last 5 or 10 years in works to generalize on skill sets. An entirely unintentional pun.
I would imagine the military is like every place else - it has authoritarian managers, buddy-buddy managers, good managers, bad managers, consensus building managers, my-way or the highway managers, wheel and deal managers, dirty managers, clean managers and every variety in between (regardless of what the ultimate mission, rules, and movie clips would suggest). Certainly 2 stars is a restricted space, wiki tells me the US has 99 of them at any one time, but I can't hazard a guess as to what phenotype is actually selected for in that environment.
I have limited experience with military officers becoming managers in non-military settings, and in my very limited sample one might stereotype towards being a bit rules oriented on one hand but remarkably willing to delegate and remarkably willing to accept the expert opinions of those below them - as if a reflection of compartmentalization of expertise. A little rough on the edges, yea, I think so.
After considering the facts:
1. He talks like he can pull it off ("I disagree" w/re: refi)
2. He acts like he can pull it off (hiring an exec assistant and a COO type which likely raises the cost of his position, executed through three people instead of one, to that of at least what SKS was getting)
I must conclude that he either will or wont pull it off.
If "no new sales" is to be read as "no new large deals", it might be simpler if one simple wrote it that way.
There are plenty of speculative companies for which "no sales" would be a true statement. One can argue it is simply a matter of editorial laziness, but it is plain that some statements are false, some are true, and that is just the way it is. Arguments built on true statements often seem sounder.
We are not talking about a rare statement, we are talking about an oft repeated specifically emphasized central tenant to a thesis, one where the effort (understandably considerable) of typing 'large deals' in place of the word 'sales' would be perhaps warranted.
Fair enough, but I wont be any more inclined to exclude "licensing fees" (as you apparently do?) from sales then than I am now.
I am not making any argument that Wave is or is not selling anything in Q3, on that I have nothing to defend or dispute 'when the numbers come out'.
I am stating that the argument that they have had "no sales" is demonstrably false and nothing reported for Q3 will have any opportunity to amend that truth.
Could you point me to where you got that $800k number?
SKS repeatedly indicated that eSign was on the cusp of cfbe,
which in Sprague-speak likely means they were at cfbe if one doesn't include expenses .... and a mumbled about headcount of something like 5, which might read like 10 prior to the wave of expense reductions. looking at DocMagic one can get the impression that eSign tried to enter into an occupied business area, one populated by folks who do it for a living. I had half expected them to get zilch for the thing.
e-sign
it provides that cash plus reduces whatever expenses/loss it was operating at and of course there was this in Mr(s) Edgar:
In March 2014, the Company received a notice from DocMagic, Inc. alleging that certain of the Company’s eSignSystems solutions infringe upon a patent held by DocMagic, Inc. The Company is reviewing this matter and evaluating its defenses should DocMagic bring any claims.
doMagic has been at this for a good while (est 1988) and likely enjoyed incumbent status in an area where one would expect customers to migrate towards a dominant "compatible" platform.
"Founded in 1988, DocMagic, Inc. is the largest loan document production company in the U.S. "
Sensible disposal, glad they got something for it.
The metaphor Titanic may be a bit extreme, but a quick glance at the balance sheet, cash flow, and recent income trends depict a boat taking on water, more than a bilge pump can reasonably accommodate.
Fating a company to a standards body is not something I do. A number of alternative energy start-ups (e.g.) revolve around things like federal renewable fuels standards - not a good place to be. Others, largely in the same business, observe these standards, but build the company based on what is rather than depending entirely on what is not but which they hope will be.
wavedreamer has presented an apparently sound argument about how these various external criteria may precipitate additional opportunities for wave. Good on that, but I personally am not interested in investing in something entirely dependent on what is not. Some are, occasionally it works out for them. I've done it, it has invariably been an exercise in me escaping with as little damage as possible. Consequently, I seek to always invest in what I think is allowing for speculation about what will be based on factors internal to the property.
This apologizing for failure owing to TPM adoption is ludicrous.
Take MSFT. Recently (or not so) MSFT released a new operating system, one that leverages TPMs. Did the OS fail as miserably as it did because of weak TPM adoption? or did it fail because it was a miserable product that people did not want. This is Mr Softy hisself we are talking about here, and a product specifically designed in many respects to leverage TPMs. Is it the case that they could not build an integrated OS (phones, tablets, PCs) that would sell well because the TCG an/or TPMs hadn't taken off? Or did they build, essentially, a bad product?
Is VSCv2 any different technically from what wave sold to PwC years ago? Does PwC suffer from literacy or technical impotence, are they not read up on NIST? Don't they know its not finalized?
I've always wondered is Edgar an acronym of sorts, or just a clever dude?
regarding the rest of that,
yes, if they had made a large sale that they could report, I expect they would have reported it. I believe that to be the case with all of my investments, past and present. Regarding Q3, my opinions have not changed sincce the last time I commented on that here.
I don't consider reading Form 10q "rooting around", I consider that looking where I'm supposed to look, and consider it a fundamental of investing in public companies, particularly speculative or distressed companies.
The lack of even a casual effort in that regard from both the "naysayers" and the "kool-aid" crowd I find to be rather remarkable, but not in a flattering sense.
blue, I believe I have a more than casual understanding of your thesis, but can't see how it is strengthened by so routinely touting a false statement as its centerpiece. They sell millions and millions of dollars of products every quarter, they clearly don't sell enough products, but over and over again you roll out the "no sales" argument, sometimes qualified, more often not. For some, a colorfully adorned highly emphasized false statement significantly undermines whatever effort is being made. I e.g. routinely "file" content so dependent on such premises.
Blue, corporate sales are reported on Forms 10q and 10k. No sales requires finding some zeros in critical places in those documents. Given you are speaking for the year, is it not incumbent on you and not others to point to where in those public documents your assertions of no sales are supported?
yes, the point is not to sell folks on TPMs and turning on TPMs, the point is to sell people products they want ... that happen to use TPMs.
barge, that is IMO considering what's for lunch in Manhattan while on the deck of the Titanic. Not everybody aboard the Titanic dies, and lunch will somw day be material, but for the moment the whole survival thing trumps any elephants real or imagined.
If I thought that near term survival was dependent on an elephant thingy, I would divest. Does that answer your question?
well they did seem comfortable describing the previous pipeline as full of dead leaves, so one has at least a basis for hoping that they describe opportunities and pipelines with greater rigor. a number of their public statements seem consistent with the notion of using greater scrutiny, but on the flip side there is considerable pressure and one can imagine a pretty wide net post-launch, wider than perhaps would be prudent for an established enterprise. on the flip-flip side, wide nets dilute resources from genuine opportunities.
on paper some of the recent hires presumably have familiarity with successful and failed strategies and employ the former, at least I think that is a component of 'the plan'.
that certainly adds some color to the notion of an interval between a successful pilot and a deal.
50% FWIW seems pretty robust to me, but I suppose its about what we are calling the denominator, and that perhaps a lot of weeding happens pre-pilot.
As far as your comment on recognizing revs, I'm fine with billings and defrev. IMO to the extent that one sees robust billings growth and defrev growth then IMO it provides an opportunity for those who follow a stock closely versus those who just looked at the GAAP headlines.
Of course, billing may be based on contingencies (milestones) as well, which is a separate matter.
Again, 50% is a robust number to me. TWT.
Hmmm, about 3 weeks or so
until the Q3 report.
(time for mr. obvious)
1) they close something noteworthy between now and then
2) they don't close something noteworthy between now and then
(you see what I did there?)
If 1 happens then the Q3 numbers become less important (the whole traction thingy consistent with 'the plan'), if on the other hand 2 is what plays out then the Q2 numbers will receive considerable scrutiny.
I don't even know if they bill for pilots, it would seem the word pilot means no - BICBW. I suppose historically the government gets billed for pilots - a services type billing. Otherwise I don't expect "dozens" to mean revenue in Q3.
So that leaves Q3 (best case notions) with perhaps some recovery in SMB Embassy billings, perhaps some continued income form Dell, perhaps an unknown maintenance renewal of some significance (like '13 Q3) or perhaps some 'other OEM' income.
It could be a really tough report, or perhaps surprise in some of the core numbers even with the overall values looking rough. Or it could just look rough.
The eggs continue to appear to migrate to a single basket.
They may feel compelled to speculate if it all ends up flat and empty - but they have shown little willingness to do so short of indicating that they are building a pipeline, and that said pipeline has pilots going on.
Were one to look at a pipeline in stages then I would imagine
1 - identify customer (or be identified)
2 - reach out (or be reached out to) and determine suitability (cost, extant hardware),
3 - migrate suitability discussions to more deliberate cost discussions
4 - pilot
5 - up/down on pilot, negotiate a final cost
6 - determine a delivery date
7 - deliver-bill
The reason for the above is I don't see pilot transitioning to a billing instantaneously.
Short of my 67% likelihood of a launch customer guess - which was wrong, my internal guess had been for a sale of significance sometime prior to the Q3 CC. Not that there is good reason for selecting that window short of 'the plan' notions and market durability of WAVX common.
In the absence of a deal the SP may well get pummeled again. The flip side of course being that if they execute the plan (Q1 billings $8m), the path to a SP of say $3.5 is largely effortless (IMO). (-50% to +300%) in either event it should be interesting to watch.
tic toc
a token is a form of TC, the argument that nobody has made money off of TC is a IMO tired Wave apology. There are all variety of multifactor solutions including hardware based that make money. By focusing narrowly on the open TCG standards is doctoring the data. Vendors that chose to only sell TCG and phrase it that way, package that way, and babble about folks "getting it" ignore what is.
As argued by titlewave, nothing about VS C is new. If it sells it was as able to sell years ago ... but obsession with the alignment of a particular constellation of standards in some tomorrow or another has been a problem.
Yes, some atronomical aligment may occur, and asteroids may strike, and believe it or not I am not being sarcastic regardless of how it sounds, but the ratio of thought, effort, and resources should bias considerably to things nearer and internal to Wave.
If VSC is bust future constellations can do nothing to diminish the severe dilution or loss that will occur.
It's the deck of the Titanic scenario, I can consider what I'm going to have for lunch when I get to Manhattan, but there is that whole being alive detail that presently preempts gazing into the night sky.
Even upon survival, from a company standpoint I hope the company never again gets distracted with "supply", the notion that a certain number of 1 dollar chips or a certain collection of standards will create demand for Wave products in some sort of flood-gate fashion. It is that reasoning that allows wasteful spending, irrational staffing, lost product focus, etc etc etc. It is a fundamentally flawed process. This is not the only enterprise where Gilder has presided over such a flawed process. Its not about belaboring the failures of last management, it is about realizing a bad approach and its consequences.
If the flavor of the day happens, great, certainly make sure one's products can do that if it happens, but don't quit one's day job ... building products people want (today).
The distinction is one of tense,
One refers to a product that is interesting today, the other refers to the idea that a particular standard is about to make something interesting.
The distinction informs on viable business models. Do you have something to sell today or are you waiting for external factors to precipitate an environment into which you can sell?
Obviously cool notions of future things are cool, particularly cool if they come true as imagined, but dogs gotta eat.
The current admin recognizes the distinction and has plans to feed the dogs.
The previous admin lived in the haze of "Keep in mind there are 2 more stages after the "Compilation" stage".
One can build products for what is,
or one can build products for what is not.
Building products for a particular standards rule that is not,
planning to leverage an installed base that does not exist,
thinking forever that if what isn't became what is,
then (any only then) some floodgatey thingy supposedly happens.
Fug me.
alea, of the two scenarios, the one requiring a bridge refi (or even a growth/investment refi) is not troublesome to me, I don't resist equity financing per se, but Wave's days of rolling financings to fund basic or even contracting operations are, imo, over.
So in the scenario where they get to 16, are flirting with or have achieved cfbe, I believe the market will treat Wave as turned around. Wave has indicated the anticipated inclusion of partners in order to achieve scale in the nearer term, one could imagine a reasonable ROI to equity finance bringing that in house ... just one example. Similarly, while they speak towards mobile and flash, if the company is operating cfbe+ then one could imagine e.g. an equity based acquisition or otherwise investment in that area, or not. So I'd be game with either a bridge or something more assuming an actual ROI for something more is well mapped out.
SKS often would chortle that any upcoming funding would be good, because it would mean they were dripping with customers and needed cash to grow ... that was all bollocks, but the notion in the hands of capable managers is by no means automatically bunk.
As far as retro versus no retro, no doubt with what you've said. I just don't know what the landscape looks like out there in enterprise machines, supposedly they most all have TPMs, presumably TPMs that are actually addressable, but that is all rather unproven hearsay IMO. It hasn't ever played out that way in any deployment I know of (whereas tokens have a long legacy and hence can fit anything).
Certainly they are in the gov machines. But Walmart? It seems likely, Wave did get a several tens of millions in revs bundling to unused TPMs, they are somewhere.
Certainly Wave's pitch is a legacy pitch (e.g. Win7) the question just being what the underlying machines have. Many non-TPM mobos have a TPM header - my home machines e.g - but that would be pretty intensive.
I would expect when trolling for customers to make-up the "dozens", that wave sales engineering support informed wave sales staff of the suitability of potential customers for current pursuit. I am going out on a limb and assuming the "dozens" are vetted by engineering and legacy proof in this case. If not ...
tkc, what dozens needs to do ...
(this is premised on 3-5Qs sales cycle, that is, whatever is going to meet the plan requirements is on the radar now and part of "dozens", the runway is not adequate to count tomorrows additions)
2 scenarios
1) $24m in revs Q3,4,1. This leads to a likely bridge refi. If one assumes "base" billings of $4m/Q (far from guaranteed) then one needs $16m.
at $20 a seat = 200k seats
at $30 a seat = 133k seats
at $40 a seat = 100k seats
2) $27m in revs Q3,2,1. That would seem to meet a no refi goal. if one assumes the same base billings then one needs $19m.
at $20 a seat = 350k seats
at $30 a seat = 233k seats
at $40 a seat = 175k seats
GM was 100k seats, BASF I can't recall, BP is even more muddled but looks like ~20k seats like based on a variety of sources.
Point is something like 100-350k seats. Poor base showing raises this, bundling contributions from Samsung or Sandisk lower this. Solms refers to WYY as an OEM sales from which would likely be indirect and easily not PRed (although I am inclined to think the last gov thingy was through WYY).
Basically products sales would need to largely snowball although obviously a mega customer or two takes an awful lot of pressure off of the rest.
Pretty dicey though.
On the flip side, if one reads the Gartner report and compares the strengths of all of the vendors, Wave's offerings looks very good. If one reads the weakness in the Gartner report one finds concerns about ability to execute hinging on corporate restructure, recent history of operating deficit, and client feedback (again, I have long thought SKS would be a bum to deal with and obviously the products needed polishing - scalability being a big hunk of ability to execute). The one technical thing mentioned as a weakness is Wave is indiscriminate with removable media, requiring full encryption of e.g. USB drives as opposed to safe stuff and unsafe stuff (but recognize e.g. that much of the competition has no removable media solution at all).
And a note on Safend: from a Gartner perspective Wave is dead without Safend. They depended on Safend for FIPS prior to takeover, now own FIPS with the takeover, and Safend's DLP products provide the breadth required to close deals (as evidenced e.g. by the BP deal). They may have done the Safend deal poorly, but it was a critical strategic move and currently provides about half of their non-Dell revs (and does so at a profit in segment reporting).
w-train, yup botched it by a mil at that point, more valuable ot me is the notion that they need 16m in billings in any form by the end of Q1 which would likely set up for a not so awful PP or more like 19m in billings in any form for a more of less fully successful plan execution ... recognizing that of course the ball must keep rolling.
So if Q3 comes in at say 4m in billings (with no big deals) and one goes ahead and calls that "base" (12m over three Qs) then one just watches for 8k's to add up to 4-7m over three Qs. That sort of thing. There is a lot of moving parts as alea mentioned, this is more about quantifying needs and the size of the gap to close. Gap, not hole.
Obviously growth in base would fly under the PR radar (as would weakness there) and so on.
lugan, I clicked thru, the language is identical to the Apr PR, looks like a rehash, moreover the SP and volumes mentioned are consistent with the Apr MU bounch.
blue/player
blue, I was simply trying to crudely outline what was required for cfbe and roughly when it would be required and then sketching in what would have to occur in some form to meet that requirement - not an exercise in taking a PR and piling on a bunch of speculation and going forward, an exercise in taking the books and simply trying to determine what they will need over the next 6 months. Just trying to quantify needs, not guesstimate outcomes.
player, yes, cfbe is roughly a bit under 8m/q (it seems to me), so obviously that is what they need in billings at some point, more or less.
billings has varied a lot over time, hitting a new recent low Q2. what you are saying is pretty much what I am thinking. For me something like :
1) Q3/4/1 would need to go something like 4m/5m/7m likely leading to a refi unless Q2 was something they were very confident about, but a refi they could likely get on less than awful terms at that point
or
2) it would need to go more like 4m/6m/8m which would presumably fit the cfbe on last PP with a small cushion argument. (an extra 3m at the end of Q and more or less at cfbe)
it is much more tractable to me to try to define what they need than it is to look at "dozens" and start speculating.
4m/5m/7m vs 4m/6m/8m e.g. describes trajectories one can kinda measure against ... well ... except Q4 doesn't report until the writing on the wall is already likely rather plain. As Q3 did not have any large deals noted, it presumably provides the base number upon which reported large deals are added to guesstimate tracking against the 16+m however one chooses to draw the curve.
I'm not particularly inclined on the Q4 big, Q1 small thing ... if it is that many companies their FYs are going to be all over the place, BICBW. In any event it seems one can carve up 16m however they want leading to viability but a likely bridge refi or something more like 19m for fully successful "plan" execution. Billings touchstones.
not a wisp to swag with,
the previous admin was a blast this way, providing all sorts of faux specifics to pure phantoms, you know, two maybe three deals, 1.5 - 2.9m each, in 5-7 weeks..... not so much of that from the new admin.
Solms has indicated there is at least one large company they have been courting, F500ish as memory serves.
Safend has a decent client list, it would seem there may be a number of opportunities there, as memory serves they had sold to DoJ and DoD and their various NHS thingy's and such. One could imagine a number of these unit sized divisions 100, 200, 500, 1000 seats. Wave has some SED clients Saint Barnabas etc., same sort of thing. They say they have switched focus to large enterprises (echoing what SKS said he was doing back in 2011 or 2012)
I'm inclined to think that regardless of the size of the company, that they will roll out smaller deployments as a sort of test drive (even post-pilot) but as we know 'the plan' has some requirements ... not that I can recall them that well ... but there was $8.5m cash end of Q, and expenses appear to run just under $8m/q. So, by the end of Q1 the company would presumably have spent $24m, less cash that leaves a $16m hole. "Normal" billings seem to be good for $3m/q ($9m over Q3-Q1). Missing now is $7m. If one says Dell is good for another $1.5m. That leaves $6.5m. I'll take $6.5m in any order at any time between now and the end of Q1 (recognizing that the ball must keep rolling through Qs2,3,4 etc).
As far as making hay out of "dozens", just making stuff up, but if one says $30/seat, wave needs to sell ~220k seats. A big deal or two takes a big hunk out of that, SMBs presumably doing mop up. It looks pretty dicey to me.
re dozens of pilots,
personally what I find a bit striking is that while SKS would talk pipelines and pilots (worthlessly), even then I don't recall ever seeing it in print in a formal PR.
this is not SHM afterhours or impromptu CC QA response,
Dozens of pilots was printed in a formal PR, this was presumably vetted and approved.
Coupled with "i don't think so" re:refi, and if nothing else there is a willingness to express some confidence.
alea, this quote,
quoted elsewhere:
We believe that this sale, which was completed on a shorter sales cycle than we had anticipated, supports our view that customers are interested in the type of cyber security solution that Wave's Virtual Smart Card 2.0 provides
does seem to indicate a demand mindset from Solms.
Who cares what one has, care about what others want.
One could imagine this was a back pocket PR,
for deployment if/when SP closed below 1.
If so, it reflects some long term confidence,
or at least a measured approach,
coupled with staying on message regarding 'the plan'.
It is consistent with the stated plan,
and consistent with the not backing off on the plan, refi etc.
Only time will tell, but the coincidence of this with $1 and growing shareholder rancor looks perhaps pre-considered.
They certainly pulled a coup with the financing at 1.9,
perhaps they will be similarly deft in the whole second half of 2014,
3-5 qs, PP has cushion thingy.
It certainly fits the 'report anything no matter how small' mantra blue has been pushing, way to go blue.
yes, we seem to be mixing forms,
the 10% customer reporting rule for Forms 10(q/k) and the notion of when a company might choose to file Form 8-k Sec8 other events, which is governed by the judgement call you refer to regarding whether the information regarding an event would influence investment decisions.
my understanding is that small companies often elect to use 8-k to report sales when an event exceeds ~10% (the number being entirely unrelated to the 10% customer reporting rule) and that the whole notion of 10% in this case is rather arbitrary as there simply is no such rule but rather a judgement call as to whether accelerated reporting is appropriate.
player re: no floor, I agree, but as the Form is for unusual events one has to wonder whether pumping paperwork through the SEC claiming it to represent unusual events (de facto) that are not at all unusual might draw some interest as to whether the company was trying to mislead by claiming unusual status for very usual things.
NW, based on discussions elsewhere with those that claim to know,
there is no numerical rule. 8-k provides a vehicle to report in a more timely fashion what would otherwise be reported in a Q report, it requires an 8-k for material events not in the normal order of business for the company. For small companies with irregular large sales significantly impacting revenue/balance-sheet/cash-flow that is broadly interpreted as a single event exceeding 10% of sales.
Wave selling SED management software is normal business. It requires no 8-k. AAPL having a surge in iPad sales is normal business. In the case of Wave, while it is normal business, single deals exceeding 10% or sales is rare, so typically small struggling companies use it as a means to communicate the success and to insure compliance as the information begs for insider abuse with volatile small cap equities - and 8-k levels the playing field.
That is the key : is the information material?, unusual?, do those with the information have an advantage over the public at large? if so, 8-k.
Based on this, in Wave's case, it would seem they could reasonably 8-k a 300-500k deal.
It is noteworthy that most things filed on 8-k are proscribed, and are cited to the relevant section of the rule (e.g., corporate governance, financial disclosure, etc) but these sorts of sales to which we speak are really normal business and are filed under "other events" (Section 8) which is used for the optional disclosure of things the company deems important (new products, a big sale). Section 8 "other items" does not have the 4 day time rule of the other items as I understand it. The notion that there is a hard and fast % rule is largely an urban myth. It is done because the company wants to, and dramatically reduces the likelihood of an insider boo-boo when the information might easily be expected to jolt markets.
This is a summary from a few folks, none of which is an SEC attorney, they are bankers/investment/financial adviser pros.