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That's like saying that smart cards are not commercially viable because biometrics exist. No offense intended, but you're making crazy broad assertion that doesn't fit with reality.
Specifically for VSC, the device becomes the token, not the user. With your statement you're completely ignoring the benefit of having a secured device. Granted, other things need to happen in the device like trusted boot with remote attestation (ie WEM or equivalent) but the point is that security isn't all about making sure that a bad actor isn't on your network.
I've been experiencing this too. I think it might have something to do with Internet Explorer. It won't work on IE9 but it will on Mozilla Firefox.
I was actually quite pleased with the conference call. I thought SKS was relatively transparent and forthcoming with information he could realisticly convey. I didn't like the tone of his answer about the current quarter which makes me think it will be flat to Q4'11 to slightly up at best. But what I did like was his equally flat tone about possibly hitting $60M for 2012 as though that would be somewhat of a disappointment. From a somewhat flat Q1, $60M for the year would probably yield a quarterly reveunue run rate of $17-19M by Q4. From SKS's commentary, this represents expected growth *without* significant trusted computing adoption. He mentioned at least twice the nonlinear ramp expected from SEDs & TPM adoption in conjuction with Win8. I believe him. At some point, SEDs will be the new normal. As will trusted computing. I don't think that SKS wants to publically speculate what things could look like when this happens but it was clear that he believes it will be in 2013.
So you all can think that we have dead money until then, but I'm willing to bet that the market will see things happening well before they do happen. So from my perspective, 2012 represents a "ho-hum" ramp in quarterly revenues toward $20M with a nonlinear ramp soon after. If it plays out this way, do you think we'll still be under 2 bucks?
attcav
To all who commented on my RSA post, thanks and it was my pleasure. Lugan, I'm not a full member so I can't PM- I'm not local to the bay area... Finally to the board moderators, I was curious why my post was deleted. I thought it conformed to the terms of service for Ihub and the board. Thanks, Player, for reposting it under yours. :)
I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of all the IA-based computers and PCs at GE and around the world how HAVE TPMs. I would also be willing to bet that you're currently correct in assuming that these are NOT being used at this point.
The key question here then is WHEN all these TPMs will be put to use. In another bet as I'm big on that in this post, I would be willing to bet that they WILL be used in the immediate future because Intel and its partners are not in the habit of creating gigantic initiatives like trusted computing without making a buck off them.
I'm sure you're familiar with PCI and USB. Did you know that USB hardware was available with rudimentary software support in Win95 back in the mid-late 90s? USB hardware kept shipping through this time through Win98 and all the rest until it really became ubiquitous in XP or just before. I would venture a guess that Intel shipped hundreds of millions of USB-enabled chipsets with an adoption of <10% of the USB capability. Can you find a PC or a PC peripheral today that does not use USB? My point is that there is a long adoption for these things. There is a sea change in markets requiring greater security whether it be because of cloud computing, virtualization, or the sheer ubiquity of connectivity. And all this represents a gold mine to miscreants who choose to make their living by stealing from others.
Trusted computing WILL happen. The only question in my mind is whether Wave will be the only one to capitalize on it and whether the management is mature and experienced enough to protect and enhance what they've built. Your arguements about whether mobile devices will have TPMs or whether anyone will need greater security in the future (paraphrasing) are rather hollow and miss the point. No offence intended here- I'm just saying that while there are still many questions in my mind about Wave's success, the evolution of security in the market place aint one of them.
attcav
I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of all the IA-based computers and PCs at GE and around the world how HAVE TPMs. I would also be willing to bet that you're currently correct in assuming that these are NOT being used at this point.
The key question here then is WHEN all these TPMs will be put to use. In another bet as I'm big on that in this post, I would be willing to bet that they WILL be used in the immediate future because Intel and its partners are not in the habit of creating gigantic initiatives like trusted computing without making a buck off them.
I'm sure you're familiar with PCI and USB. Did you know that USB hardware was available with rudimentary software support in Win95 back in the mid-late 90s? USB hardware kept shipping through this time through Win98 and all the rest until it really became ubiquitous in XP or just before. I would venture a guess that Intel shipped hundreds of millions of USB-enabled chipsets with an adoption of <10% of the USB capability. Can you find a PC or a PC peripheral today that does not use USB? My point is that there is a long adoption for these things. There is a sea change in markets requiring greater security whether it be because of cloud computing, virtualization, or the sheer ubiquity of connectivity. And all this represents a gold mine to miscreants who choose to make their living by stealing from others.
Trusted computing WILL happen. The only question in my mind is whether Wave will be the only one to capitalize on it and whether the management is mature and experienced enough to protect and enhance what they've built. Your arguements about whether mobile devices will have TPMs or whether anyone will need greater security in the future (paraphrasing) are rather hollow and miss the point. No offence intended here- I'm just saying that while there are still many questions in my mind about Wave's success, the evolution of security in the market place aint one of them.
attcav
Sutter Medical Foundation- give em a call, Wave.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19351997
Stolen Sutter Medical Foundation computer had information on millions of patients
Associated Press
Posted: 11/16/2011 06:00:13 PM PST
Updated: 11/16/2011 06:00:14 PM PST
A Sutter Medical Foundation computer stolen in mid-October held information on more than 4 million patients, some dating back to 1995, including names, addresses and descriptions of diagnoses, officials at the health network said Wednesday.
Sutter Physicians Services and Sutter Medical Foundation told Sutter Health officials and Sacramento police of the computer's theft from the foundation's administrative offices the weekend of Oct. 15.
For 3.3 million patients whose health-care provider is supported by Sutter Physician Services, names, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers and names of patients' health insurance plans were contained in the computer's database.
Sutter Physicians Service provides billing and managed-care services for health-care providers, including those in the Sutter Health network.
The same information was compromised for another 943,000 Sutter Medical Foundation patients.
Information on patients from January 2005 to January 2011 included dates of services and a description of medical diagnoses and/or procedures used for business operations.
Foundation patients are being notified by mail of the theft and the damage done.
Patients concerned about their information can go to Sutter Health's website, www.sutterhealth.org, to find a list of affected health providers or call toll-free at 855-770-0003 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Patients will be asked to enter the 10-digit reference code: 7637111511.
The computer did not contain patient financial records, Social Security numbers, patients' health plan identification numbers or medical records, Sutter officials said.
The theft came, Sutter officials said, as the health network was in the process of encrypting their computers.
The stolen computer was not encrypted. On Wednesday, in a statement, Sutter Health Chief Executive Officer Patrick Fry said "we have accelerated these efforts" and are reinforcing security measures.
If back in early 2005 after Wave posted quarterly revenues of $78K, someone would have said that in all but three of the next 26 quarters we would show increasing quarter over quarter revenues, who would have thought that we would still be trading under a split-adjusted buck? Sheesh.
attcav
Dig, RWK, ahh yes, I failed to consider the case where full disk software encryption was applied AFTER a significant amount of content was already on the disk.... DUH. That is exactly the way it was done where I worked the last time our PCs were migrated. We went from XP to Win7 and then during the migration process we had to spend an hour or so suffering through Bitlocker encrypting our drives. It actually wasn't that bad because I was just doing e-mail etc. during the process. But I can see how this would be a big time sync for an IT lacky.
And as I surmise was SKS's point and what you guys were saying, when you encrypt all that stuff on an SSD you would in fact have a fair amount of the the unencrypted info left on the drive.
This, however, is where the unfortunately named TRIM command comes in. It was put in place for the OS to tell the SSD which sectors are actually unused (erased). In a normal SATA drive, there is is only read and write (no erase). This is fine for the old school rotating media (magnetic) drives because they support overwrite of the media. In other words you can just write over a sector that already exists. But with a flash drive, as you guys point out, you have to erase first before the flash can be written to again. So with a SATA SSD without TRIM, the drive doesn't know which sectors need to be erased and must rely on an internal garbage collection routine based on the amount of drive space that is used and/or spare processing time. With TRIM, the OS tells it what is unused. I suspect Bitlocker liberally uses TRIM. Even so, there would be a window where unencrypted data still resides on the drive in the situation you point out...
attcav
re: wear leveling, these comments don't make much sense to me. I didn't listen to the presentation but my understanding of software encryption, aka Bitlocker, encrypts data using the host processor prior to storing it on the drive. In other words, if you have a sector of information you want to store on the drive, I suspect the Bitlocker software will essentially trap the drive write, encrypt the sector using host PC resources, and then write the encrypted sector to the drive. The reverse will happen upon a drive read of that sector.
That said, then ALL user data on the drive will be encrypted. Any wear leveling or other flash managment that occurs on the SSD will be acting on encrypted data. So to say that wear leveling results in incomplete erasure of bits, can be rationalized in the sense that flash data is marked dirty before it's erased. So therefore you could have a quantity of user data that has been "deleted" but still resides on the drive as "dirty". But to then suggest that this dirty data is unencrypted seems quite strange.
Anyone care to suggest why or how unencrypted user data would magically appear on a bitlocker-encrypted drive?
attcav
Rest in peace, Steve.
Hey 1260, nice call on the price today! Looks like you were right!
attcav
I'm not as optimistic about a postive share price tomorrow. I may be wrong, but this transaction still represents significant dilution to shareholders, correct? Like on the order of a little over 6%? So all other things being equal, I would expect shares to be lower by about that much tomorrow. Now if you believe that Wave is oversold or beaten down by today's market action or generally a screaming buy then there may be pent up buyers to compensate for the dilution. I might believe that there's $.20 of upside on top of the dilution so if Wave even ends positive tomorrow it would seem that that's a big vote of confidence for this acquisition. Feel free to correct my logic if you believe it to be flawed.
attcav
The "at least" is notable here as the $16.4M was from a series B and series C funding round. Presumably there were previous rounds of funding as well. So if you consdier this then the investors are getting hosed. If you take it at today's face value.
Looking at this optimistically, however, I believe that Safend sees Wave as an opportunity for genuine business synergies but also as a way to possibly grow much faster than the would have been able to do on their own.
One thing that's been drilled into my head over the years is that VCs aren't stupid. They may not run a particular business that they fund but they darn sure know everything about the business they can before they invest. So to suggest that these particular VCs, some with Safend board representation, would decide to roll over and be compensated for less than they invested doesn't add up to me. I know nothing about Safend but as we all know security is hot now and I have to assume that Safend also had a bright looking future being "in the right place at the right time"
So they're presented with an opportunity: "partner" with Wave (I'm sure that's how they see it) and the sum of the parts will be worth far more than either partner could do individually. As compensation, they're given a cut of the action that represents a loss to their investors today. But I absolutely have to believe that those shares were not looked at in today's dollars but in what they will become in 1, 2 or 3 years. And based on this one can easily see how Safend becomes a $50 to $100M company to its investors with Wave growing to a $1-2B market cap. What technology growth company these days with Wave's potential and market position isn't worth at least this? (okay, Wave, start demonstrating...)
Of course they have yet to prove it, but I would also be willing to bet that Safend had an indepth look at the mythical pipeline and liked what they saw. They probably also added a dose of Israeli high-tech ego and told themselves that they could make this underperforming Wave company a $2B enterprise on their own.
So I look at this as a Safend IPO in which the founders, VCs etc. see easy money to be made that aligns to their core competancies. And as another poster put it, how else are they going to buy 5M shares of Wave for $2/share?
attcav
Dig, thanks for your response. First, I'll say that I'm not an IT guy so my understaning of "managing" is limited. But I would suggest that while "managing" definitely has connotations of "enabling" it also suggests "controlling". In other words, I think the point that remains to be seen is just to what extent all these devices need to be controlled/known etc. Just to give an example of what I mean, it's quite reasonable to think that a company could enable bitlocker or use a SED for each employee's gadget *without* central management of that. Doing so would provide enhanced security over not doing so, but the actual $$$ outlay would be cheaper (no purchase of central management software).
Now that example clearly forgoes the alleged benefits of central management that Wave touts, but such a model does exist. What I'm truely puzzled about is the lack of awareness that IT folks seem to have with the TPM and hardware capabilities, and/or Wave's lack of salesmanship of the same. And then what follows is their lack of vision into the benefits of central management. Maybe I'm just dead wrong but I would think that if anyone would know about TPMs and security it would be the IT crowd, and similarly they would understand the benefits of having a known device on their network. Now maybe up until now it's just been a cost/benefit thing- after all sometimes it's easier and cheaper to settle than litigate even if you're right. Perhaps they just couldn't convince management to plop down $50 a pop for their 100,000 employees. I'm not exactly sure what magically sways them to now other than the ever increasing security threats and the general propensity for crowd-like behavior. After all, if everyone else is doing it then maybe I should too. Sorry, just rambling a bit.
Dig, nice metaphor. I posted the other day that I was concerned about MSFT from a competitive standpoint. I still am because if hardware security truely becomes price of doing business then I maintain that MSFT will want a piece of the management business or in some way subsume functions such that they become an integral part of the products they sell. Alea (as usual) had some very good points about MSFT not wanting necessarily to be in this sort of business and that they would make their money in other ways. This also may very well be true. And if I read his responses, I believe he was also saying what you noted about wrapping the TPM functionality. This of course isn't direct competition, but if they dumb it down and make it so easy to leverage a TPM that my grandmother could do it then Wave's many year lead quickly becomes about 6 months and one of name/brand recognition. Perhaps this is enough and I strongly believe that they will be among the first to enjoy the "new" hardware-based security requirements. As to how long this will last and how long Sprague-Co. will fend off seasoned business veterans [trappers :)] remains to be seen. What do you think the end game is for Wave? Buyout, organic growth until they're one of the big boys, or something less stellar than either of those?
Perhaps, but as TPMs in particular are PC-centric, it seems that MSFT is in a unique position to capitalize on this market just as Wave seems to be. In fact, it seems that the lack of strong competition with Wave is probably due in part to the perceived *lack* of a market to date. I mean, who really *pays* for security, right? Especially when a "secure" system means you're using bit locker.
The potential TAM for Wave is mind boggling quite frankly. I mean so they land one auto company and bring in $10M?! If central management of networked devices becomes the requirement for "good enough" security, then there are billions upon billions of dollars to be made. How about all the auto makers? How about the auto industry? How about all manufacturers? What about all the support industries for manufactures. On and on. And with that comes a lot of competition. As they say about having to paying taxes, it's a good problem to have.
My concern is that someone like MSFT sees this too and not only will they facilitate the broad use of TPMs, but they will also capitalize on it and commoditize it. Just like with Intel, their basic strategy has been to subsume any good feature/capabiltiy to improve their own products' value and lower end user cost. The latter being not all together altruistic. Bottom line, if something is valuable, it will get absorbed by Wintel.
Wave has an impressive record of nearly uninterrupted revenue growth now for almost 28 quarters. But frankly the growth rate has been a yawner as the market's reaction shows. With all due respect, I would love to believe that MSFT doesn't have the aspiration to make a ton of money or play that role. But I would like to better understand a more material competitive advantage that Wave has.
Some things that come to mind are obviously perceived leadership in this space by those who might be familiar with the space, robust multi language support and interoperability. And of course years of experience. This shouldn't be underestimated. But they haven't been able to enable the hockey stick on their own, so when it happens will Wave really be the benefactor?
Again, sorry to drone on and sound so pessimistic- thanks for your comments and also to everyone who continues to post insightful information!
Alea et al-
First let me say please forgive my forthcoming question especially if it has already been covered. Also please don't misitrpret my motivation for asking it as I've naturally grown skeptical over the years.
There is clearly a sea change going on in the industry toward hardware security. Similarly, the apparent focus on security from Intel and Microsoft is hard to miss. But my question is this: why is everyone so bullish on Wave with respect to Microsoft? Couldn't one perceive Microsoft as a huge threat? I've read posts suggesting that MSFT will pay royalties to Wave, use Wave's technology blah blah blah. Seriously? Don't people believe that Microsoft can implement TPM management just as Wave did?
While the push for hardware security is clearly positive for Wave, I get nervous when I hear about Microsoft or any other software layer that more closely controls or integrates with the TPM. I'm genuiely seeking to understand the perspective that shows this to be unequivically good for Wave. Thoughts?
attcav
Outstanding post, dig. Much to my dismay, I couldn't agree more. I've always thought that an easy & quick pop for the stock would be to bring in a veteran operatations and/or business guy to lead and leave the visionary stuff to SKS. Give SKS the new title of CTO.
By the way, has anyone considered that IF this business ultimately ends up materializing in spite of management, then given their egocentric ways they would likely have a pretty good view of this and have motivation to take Wave private? They have proven they're good at raising money...
Sorry if that's been discussed before.
attcav
I have an account with ML. I didn't know about this Safepass thing until I tried to buy the other day. When I called they said it was for higher risk OTC and related stocks. The Safepass was to ensure "added trading security" and to make sure I understood what I was doing. Ironic that extra security is required to buy a security stock. I think this is really just a CYA on Merril's part. Whatever. I inherited them from B&A from Q&R so I think they're now my "temporary" broker!
Margin can be used "conservatively" in many ways:
* Buying on margin against other positions that are expected to be more stable
* Buying on margin knowing that you have money or liquid investments elsewhere to back it up, say in a different account
* Buying on margin against other positions you wouldn't mind selling but choose not to for whatever reason unless absolutely necessary (ie a position you're still holding to defer capital gains)
Certainly margin can get you in trouble but you can also be smart about it. Personally, I got caught on margin back in the day with WAVX and chose my second option above (ie feed the beast). In retrospect, I would have been better to liquidate rather than throwing good money after bad. I'm currently on margin a bit now due to a WAVX purchase. I rationalize that by my first and third points above.
If, however, someone had a defined sum of money and they maxed that out (margin included) by buying only Wave, then I would call that stupid or exceedingly risky...
attcav
Snackman and all the faithful-
I can't shake the feeling that this is just another shakeout because that's what *always* happens, but I know this time is different. I just thought I would poke back into the board and both thank and congratulate many of you who have dutifully posted through the years. I haven't always agreed and I certainly didn't always share the enthusiasm. But I sincerely admire the vision of many of you despite what was going on with the company, the market and the economy.
Snackman you especially never lost it, at least outwardly, and you deserve everything you've always dreamed of with this investment. The same goes for all the Wave employees who have most certainly worked their butts off for so long- I hope they equally share in what looks to me like a future of prosperity.
I personally got ripped a new one on the painful trip from 50 to near zero. Luckily, I had enough resources to edge my way back over then next several years. Although it's vindicating to see the stock price rise now, I can only hope that Wave's management has their head screwed on right and can see their way to make this a real and continuing business. They're on the radar now and with that comes increasing competition, demanding customer snafus, liability and all the rest. I sincerely hope they make the transistion from "startup" to Fortune xxx company.
My advice to anyone recommending this company now is to forget about the stock price and invest in the company. To me the significance of break-even cash flow, reoccuring revenue streams and the ability to show existing business to prospective new customers is huge. Simply from a market cap perspective this thing could easily grow to be a billion dollar to 10 billion dollar company. I hope we're all here to enjoy the ride!
attcav
Glad it was useful. I don't know how much I missed at the end. As I said, I just pelted out some things I heard. But the definite positive points were the cash flow positive, the enterprise upgrades, and the "expectation" that the Army makes SEDs a requirement soon. I also liked the idea that the awareness was increasing in terms of TPMs etc. and that pilot volumes seem to be turning more into production volumes in some cases
The only thing I heard that wasn't "encouraging" was the lack of clarity on enterprise software units in terms of a rebound. and also that the booked revenue wasn't stronger as someone else said. I'm really only concerned that the completion of their recent contract in Q2 needs to be suplemented with actual non-service revenue in Q3 which may or may not materialize.
Personally, I'm surprised that we haven't heard anything about Intel encrypted SEDs as I would think they would want to counter the Samsung offering. Knowing Intel, they'll want to do it themselves though.
Here's some chicken scratches of what I was able to glean from the call. I missed the end. Enjoy.
Update
• Revenue up in OEM business, but unit volume decreased from 1 year ago. Looking for recovery in enterprise market to really increase the overall $$$
• Customer level/interest increased, but not manifesting in volumes yet
• Encrypted volume units up
• # machines with encrypted drives going up (re-orders and new customers)
• Acer volumes increasing but not quantified yet
• Dell has highlighted encrypted drives as a preferred solution on web site (Vostro, Latitude) Vostro is new business targeted at <100 users in a corporate environment. Also available on some desktops
• Samsung SSD marketing will ratchet up later this year
• PC software upgrades: Q1 to Q2 enterprise upgrades increased. More enterprise seats sold in Q3 vs. all of Q2 based on a number of deals.
• Significant business growth in Europe as well as N. America
• Well positioned for growth over the next year
• Enterprise server seats have been sold to manage encrypted drives
• Starting to see larger interest in software upgrades for TPM based opportunities (currently have 1000 seat pilot for a company with 60K to 70K potential seats). Possible interest from government as well.
• Market development updates: US Army aggregates purchases into consolidated buys. All laptops now have SEDs an option. Expecting that this will be changed to be a requirement by the end of this year or early next year
• Three forms of revenue: OEM pays Wave, Enterprise software upgrade, services based on recurring revenue from large installed TPM base. Q1 demonstrated 1st service solution. Will see more of this in the future. Progress in electronic signature areas (mortgages, insurance etc.)
Questions
• John Cangelosi, private investor: What’s Asia business like? Number of starts into Asia. One opportunity was stalled when the company was subsequently acquired. Want to get stronger in revenues before we invest more $$$ there. Expecting more financings? Still an emerging business. Still might be times to invest into growth. Hopefully the days are behind us where we need to fund to meet payroll. Does Wave want to get bought out? Just starting to scratch the surface of our opportunity. This is a subscriber/management business. Unclear how we will manage it. Example: every channel on TV has a user name & password
• Abdul Salle: Dead air.
• Ronald Meyer, REM financial: Has any government agency began purchasing SEDs? Some are buying, but Wave doesn’t see details yet and may not from Dell. Specific volume important, but more important is that it’s a public big customer that endorses the technology. People want to see that others are adopting the technology. Role of Admiral Inman in Wave? Been in the space for years and is well respected and well known. Helpful to influence and educate key influencers in government. Can you impact in SEDs and how they affect TPM turnon rate? Laptops are usually bought as a commodity. Now the technology will help improve the security of things. Biometrics are the same but they’ve been a tough sell. Windows 7 will help with this.
• Montgomery Churchman, private investor: Can Wave benefit from heathcare stuff? Looking for legislation mandating that machines must not be anonymous. TPMs can be used for this. Does this need to be written into law? Yes an opportunity in the legal framework, rule making, rule interpretation etc.
• Abdul Salle x2: What’s non-core business opportunity like? Healthcare, some government good. Financial services renewed interest. Big systems integrators and consulting firms getting interested. Big investment so far in identity of user, not yet in identity of machine. Also subscriber management of internet very big. Are customers opening up to more business these days? Really bad in jan-Mar. Much warmer through Q2. Haven’t quantitatively seen it yet on enterprise machines. Hope over the course of the next few months for this to be apparent. Will there be growth there? 40-50% growth possible just to get back to 2008 numbers. Prior to that, PC industry was double digit growths. COGS increase? No, it did not go up. What is the gross margin? $386K of direct cost of sales vs. $4.8M of revenue.
• Timothy Collins, private investor: What is the sales process you’re going through? Added some new sales people that are already closing accounts. # seats per average transaction going up. Moving out of pilot into production.
Thought this was an interesting *example* of financing for a cash strapped company. This company is in no way related to Wave (other than being one I've also lost money on!), but it appears that they to are having some short term cash flow problems. In much the same way as the Gilder thing was debated, I'm sure a deal like this for Wave would suggest pros and cons. But it wouldn't surprise me it something like this were done if Wave was truely on the verge of cash flow neutral.
attcav
--------------------
On October 27, 2008, Nature Vision, Inc. ("Nature Vision") borrowed $700,000 from Jeffrey P. Zernov, CEO and a director of Nature Vision, to meet its short term cash flow requirements. The unsecured loan was made under the terms of a Promissory Note dated October 27, 2008 in the principal amount of $700,000 executed by Nature Vision in favor of Mr. Zernov, bearing an interest rate of 15% per annum. All principal and accrued interest on the Promissory Note is due and payable in full on January 1, 2009.
In consideration for Mr. Zernov's loan of $700,000, Nature Vision issued to Mr. Zernov a warrant to purchase 50,555 shares of Nature Vision common stock at an exercise price of $.90 under the terms and conditions of the Warrant for the Purchase of Shares of Common Stock of Nature Vision, Inc., dated October 27, 2008 (the "Warrant"). The Warrant may be exercised by Mr. Zernov at any time on or after October 28, 2008, and on or prior to October 27, 2010.
The foregoing statements are qualified in their entirety by the terms and conditions of the Promissory Note and the Warrant, copies of which are filed as exhibits to this Current Report on Form 8-K.
OT: Fullmoon, thank you very much for your PMs. I just realized that I cannot reply using my free Ihub account, so that's why I'm doing it here! I owe you one!
Hello folks. I'm looking for an old presentation that Lark Allen did at the 2007 Arm Developers conference. The presentation is called Understanding TCG Standards for Mobile Trusted Modules and Secure Storage. Does anyone know where I might find this? The web site wasn't coming up and if it worked I don't even know if they would post the conference content. If so, send me a PM or e-mail to attcav @ gmail.com Thanks! Nice day today for WAVX!
Unclevername-
I look at it not as whether a particular company benefited from something like a USB standard, but rather that the standard drove technical and business opportunities for everyone involved. Everyone associated with PCs directly or indirectly benefited from USB because of the new capabilities that it drove, the new usages that it created, upgrades etc. Concrete examples: Intel benefited by selling new chipsets (the PIIX3, PIIX4, ICH1, ICH2....._). PC manufactures benefited by having a higher speed interface to get data into and out of the products they sold. Microsoft benefited by treadmilling a reason to upgrade their OS from Win95 to Win98. Peripheral manufacturers benefited by being able to provide higher bandwidth fuller featured peripherals. And of course consumers benefited with a better overall PC experience (most of the time... :) ). With USB came USB2 and even richer and fuller usage models. The list goes on. I think it's this way with any industry-changing standard. Wifi is another example.
So that's why, in my opinion, he's cites this. Just plug in "trusted computing" in areas above, and that's probably the vision Wave has for the future.
attcav
I suspect that this is going to be getting more common. I too work at a very large company (~90K employees). We have been exclusively IBM Thinkpad for at least the past 8 years or so. I learned recently that we were evaluating Dell/HP/Apple on a trial basis, and a tech support guy I talked to noted that the Thinkpad quality had suffered since Lenovo took over. This is by no means convincing or statistical relevant information, but I would bet that we'll see more of this in the US. Especially since Lenovo's a Chinese company. How this could benefit Wave is uncertain, but it seems positive relative to conversions to Dell.
attcav
Not sure if this posted. Four new jobs opened today. All technical. Some focused on customer support. I guess they must have some customers!
Go here: http://www.wavesys.com/about/employment.html
attcav
awk-
You said:
...and thanks for your input!
I say:
No, thank YOU. Very informative stuff you've posted. Made me think more about Wave and other's roles here, specifically in the embedded/mobile space. Later.
attcav
Whitewash-
Interesting page you referenced. I interpreted the licensing line as "anyone can write a nexus for the MSFT OS, but they need to get a license from MSFT and abide by its terms". Not that MSFT is going to licensing others. I suppose it could work both ways, but I don't see MSFT really caring about getting this software component from someone else. Rather, I suspect that they just don't want to preclude others from providing this component if they desire. Which way did you interpret it?
attcav
From the very little I know about Trusted Logic, it seemed to me that they're providing the software component that complements the TrustZone hardware architecture & implementation. If this 10,000 foot perspective is accurate, then it would seem that TrustZone is a much better positioned third party provider of this solution than others, as it would be in their core business strategy.
It seems that at this point any TrustZone user would have to decide whether to roll their own security software or buy something from a company like Trusted Logic (or Wave/Symbian/MSFT or whoever). But as you point out, Wave definitely seems to have a play here too, even if this isn't or hasn't been their primary focus.
It's actually a great way to branch out from the "end user apps" business where they're playing (mostly) now. My biggest concern with their current business strategy is not that trusted platforms will be introduced, but rather that MSFT will eventually decide to write their own version of ETS and just suck it in their OS. I think Wave needs to look for other places to exploit their software and security expertise and it seems to be an excellent avenue you've noted.
Thanks for sharing!
attcav
awk-
Interesting post. A couple questions. I'm assuming the figure at the bottom of your post is of your own creation? If so, then is the "ETS Transaction Engine" used in this manner your speculation, or something that has been publicly announced?
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but isn't the concept of the trusted kernal running on a hardware platform the space that Trusted Logic currently serves for ARM TrustZone platforms? And similarly, I would guess that this something that MSFT also currently plans to support in the IA space at some point.
Of course there's nothing saying that Wave can't do this too. I'm just wondering if what you're suggesting/showing is the same as what Trusted Logic does.
If so, then I wonder what that does to Wave and Trusted Logic's previous relationship during the Finread collaberation. Maybe nothing, and it's not clear where that relationship is anyway.
Any comments would be appreciated. Sorry if you or others have already covered this. Thanks.
attcav
Hi everyone. Glad to see some of the old timers come out of the woodwork. Ever since Wave went from a “hardware” company to a software company, I haven’t had much to add. But I still enjoy reading some of the great thoughts/opinions you guys throw around. Good luck to everyone tomorrow. I’ve got high hopes that Wave has started to turn the corner, but realistically I know it will continue to take longer than expected! Maybe we’ll get a little guidance for a refreshing change. Later!
:) Yes, a long time! Been here all the while, mostly just trying to catch the highlights of each day's new info & thoughts.
By the way, did everyone catch the Wired article on Howard Dean a few months back? There was a whole blurb about Joe Trippi and his interest in Wave at one time. I'm not a Howard Dean fan, but I enthusiastically scanned the article for a Wave or TV Tonic mention!
attcav
I thought I would add a little to the integration & flash discussion. Whoever said "never say never" is probably right. There are many companies with tons of bright people who tend to solve problems that have previously not been solved.
But awk's comments, in my opinion, are the most accurate in the practical sense. While it is true that flash memory can and is commonly integrated with logic and other functions on the same die, doing so requires technical and economic sacrifices. You just can't get the most cutting edge logic process and combine it with the most cutting edge flash process without giving up things. Realistically, there is no way AMD, Intel or any other processor manufacturer is going ever integrate flash on the same die as their leading edge logic process (ie that used for their processors). It will cost too many extra mask steps, affect their yields, require different test flows etc. It's just not reasonable. If, however, there are products that can absorb these concessions then it becomes entirely possible. Why can a SuperI/O be done with integrated flash? It doesn't need cutting edge tightly packed RAM and GHz logic frequencies. The silicon lithography is also likely older and more conducive to flash requirement. It also has a transistor set with support for higher voltages that are required by flash memory.
Consider the question another way. Does a pure flash device have logic gates? Of course. They are necessary for command/address decode, bus cycle support etc. Does a pure flash device have the ability to run at GHz and support, sub 1v logic levels, have space optimized logic gates etc.? No. It doesn't need these things and removing this support provides an overall cheaper flash-only solution.
It really all comes down to cost and the market you're trying to serve. If integration provides some advantage like a cost savings, physical space savings, extra security or whatever, then it is often done. Note that "integration" can also be done in the form of multi-die packages. So just because a product indicates "on-board" or even "on-chip" flash, does not definitely mean that the flash is on-die. Anyway, hope this sheds some light on the discussion.
attcav
Hello everyone. Congratulations to the longs who have made a bundle over the past couple days.
A question for the board: Can anyone interpret what this price surge means relative to the most recent financing? I seem to recall that there was some sort of clause that kicked in if the price of WAVX got over a certain value (somewhere around $2?).
Thanks!
attcav