Dig: I don't outright reject the notion financial stability is one of the factors potential buyers look at when vetting a vendor. The part I reject is pinning the lack of sales primarily on that factor. It is a factor to be taken into account, for sure. But quality of the product seems more important, IMO.
You also wrote: "There is a considerable difference in those two circumstances, more than adequate to allow for the notion that in the first case Wave passed a "fiscal stability standard" and in the second case they failed same."
Dig, when any potential buyer looks at Wave as a company and sees in more than a quarter of a century, the company has never made so much as a penny in profit--that to me pretty much answers the question of financial stability.
However, I am not a bean counter but I do respect them. Earlier we had a disagreement whether Wave was a failing company. I think it is, and you think not.
Here's my reasoning. If a company is unable to sell enough to sustain itself and constantly has to sell shares to stay alive, that does not seem to fit the definition of a fiscally stable company--but then I don't know what the metrics are.
Getting the GM deal, or the Dell deal for that matter were good strategies. And as we both agree, the proceeds were pretty much wasted, rather than used for improving the products, increasing market share and sales.
Perhaps I am totally wrong, but I believe your inherent belief in Wave has over-ridden your normally accurate analysis. Right or wrong, it seems you are pretty optimistic, when the facts seem to argue the other way. That's fine. But when the disappointment stretches out as long as Wave has disappointed, one has to wonder what the attraction is and how it continues to hold in the face of nearly constant failure over the years.
How pathetic is it we look to the extremely low bar of CFBE as some sort of high water mark for a company that has long struggled to achieve it--and failed?
Either your inner hopes for Wave success are driving, or perhaps you are just being stubborn about the facts. Yes, there have been a relatively few bright spots along the way, but the journey as a whole has been a total failure, IMO.
When I said Wave has never had a successful strategy, I meant to stake out a market and then go after it. Wave's products are complex, as are the solutions to the problems. For one reason or another, Wave has been unable to achieve any success at all in the market in a sustainable way. I don't make excuses for those failures as some do.
If one qualifies success as reaching goals, Wave has failed there utterly.
A share price of 80 cents or below, after 26 years, two reverse splits and perhaps as many as 25 or so dilutive fundings--does not strike me as either the pinnacle of success, or even a company with much hope for it in a realistic world.
The fact is Wave has lived off the fumes of the original dream and the hopes it stirred for investors had it only managed to execute on any of its plans.
One looks back at the various strategies Wave has tried to employ and few can be called even close to a success.--the dongle, Haup card, rent-to-own, etc.
In the early days, it may have been logical to tie Wave's future to the idea of vast TPM implementation. As the number of TPMs grew geometrically, but the rate of usage remained below the threshold of measurement, wouldn't wiser businessmen have adjusted their strategies?
Wave has stayed alive all these years by selling parts of itself until there wasn't much left to sell. It was all promise and extremely little execution.
So now we come to the Solms regime. He did most of the right things, IMO, removing family from the picture, removing non-contributing subsidiaries, etc. But, IMO, he made a fatal mistake.
In the foaming wake of a lying scamster like Steven was, with a long history of promising results he knew couldn't come true, Solms should never have made those two goals of his public--unless he was absolutely sure he could achieve both. Both goals were missed widely and with it went some of Solms's credibility.
Now we are in the position equivalent to a death watch. If no significant sales come in the next 3 months--many of us think Wave could finally sink. Even the Number One cheerleader said as much yesterday.
Wave is in a vulnerable and weak position--almost entirely of its own making. It will take a herculean effort to right the ship, plug the leaks, pump the bilges and set her on a successful course--if it can be done at all. I have my doubts.
Blue
