BigT re Failed Launches:
"It was evident to many of us at the time that most of the items on your list were never going to amount to anything."
was this clarity-of-hindsight observation ever made in real time? if so, it was presumably done via the void grapevine b/c i surely don't remember the elders publicly espousing this "never going to amount to anything" theory.
"...there were some very promising Wave initiatives that ended up going nowhere. In addition to NEC and Puerto Rico, I would add EDS and the Israeli military."
the fact that Wave never publicly stated anything of substance regarding any of these three initiatives suggests IMO that they have been more "smoke & mirrors" vaporware than viable skunkworks (although SKS did seem incredibly confident that the $21M Q was achievable & stated SO at the risk of alienating the one firm (Pacific Growth Equities) that provided coverage).
did think the MSFT-SpragueXcess thing PRed in fall of 2000 had a chance to get incorporated in a future MS product, but that too seems to have whithered on the vine.
speaking of Turkey, do you know if Wave generated any big Olympic-related revs?
"They may have failed in part because of mistakes by Wave and its partners. But I think they mostly failed because the timetable for introduction of Trusted Computing turned out to be slower and more incremental than most knowledgeable observors anticipated."
had Wave gone after even a few base hits along the way, instead of always swinging for the fence, the fundamentals wouldn't likely be SO awful right now & maybe they woulda been in a position to generate revs AND provide proof of concept instead of giveaways (or near giveaways) like GolfSpan, YES Network & DeanTV.
plenty of people had less than wild-eyed beliefs about the take-up rate of TC, but too many (here) just saw the hockey stick & the nouveau riches.
it would seem that a company that truly would have been out of business years ago, but for its public equity aspects, (IMO) shoulda developed solid contingency plans for such a delayed acceptance rate, especially when SO beholden to the imprimatur of the SO-called "gorillas" as an element of the business model.
"But Trusted Computing is coming, and all the naysayers you can find will not be able to ultimately contradict the obvious value it brings with it. There was a point along the way when Wave might have been marginalized, when Microsoft made decisions which effectively assured that OEMs would select less capable TPMs instead of Embassy."
"...all the naysayers i can find..."?!?
never disputed the advent of TC BigT, just the recklessly hypothesized acceptance curve projections tossed around as if certainty. voids consistently opined an unrealistic dreamers' view which was skewed (by greed?) & ignored the fact that it would take years & years & years longer & that Wave would not be in a position to capitalize on the opportunity when it was truly ripe.
guess we have different views about what "marginalized" means. IMO Wave's irrepressible swinging for the fences approach cost them dearly & forced them to abandon a 14 year pursuit of client-side hardware & instead attempt to fill a narrowing niche which has all the signs of collapsing margins that are a galaxy away from the "cash register" business model that was being sold by mgmt during the bubble.
"Now the main thing that remains unknown is whether Wave can translate its first mover status into meaningful revenues before competition appears."
IMO Wave has been forced to share SO much IP & "know-how" over the years in order to get a seat @ the table, that any real proprietary advantage that once existed is now neglible IMO.
Wave's R&D spending has tanked over the last few years & Wave is apparently not actively developing new tech, their staff has been slashed & there are literally no resources to allocate to anything other than remaining a "going concern." that is a recipe for disaster IMO & completely eliminates any chance to be a third-party service provider for trusted services IMO.
meanwhile Wave is committed to lease an "office" in Orvault, France until 2007 or so @ something like $100K per year or some such ridiculous figure, etc., etc., ETC.
their need to affiliate w/Liberty Alliance, TCPA (& then TCG, etc.) & w/it the RAND licensing scheme may well have created the advent of TC (thus Snack's "June is ours" proclamation), but it also cost Wave what you generously call "first mover" status. It remains entirely possible that dozens of firms are (or already have) developed similar functions & can incorporate them as a loss-leader in TC offerings.
$6K in Q revs a year after the INTC/IBM PRs?
if i held wavx, i'd be very hauppy exchanging that paper for some INTC or MSFT shares & would accept $2 per wavx share as fair consideration. sorta doubt mgmt would ever accept such an offer though (unless there was no other option IMO) b/c it would end the Sprague spending spree...
have a good weekend,
SPIN
PS much like the morphed meaning of "phishing" (& Anastasio's presumed disappointment with the term's new use), didya ever think when you coined the term "wavoids" that it would later be used as a prejorative on p. 1 of the NYT biz section?
