I don't think the DD board can withstand more constructive criticism, so I'm going to make a quick comment here.
So what Plympton's comment confirmed was this: the complete absence of demand for datacasting. Not just for Wave but across the industry. This was PRECISELY why many argued that the enterprise was not worth pursuing.
Compound that with the observation that for all Wavexpress worked on its product, it could not attract any decent content.
And yet, Wave kept the doors open for year after damn year. On what basis?
Meanwhile they funded it by taking money from investors in Wave's TC project. Or put another way, they took $50m of money that might have been invested in TC (to fund mobile technology, say) and spent it on a market in which they were gaining no traction. By doing so, they damaged the credibility of Wave in the marketplace. The stock price responded to this by falling apart.
So - a good company isn't simply about a vision and it isn't about a good product. It is also about having access to raw material and having demand pull it through your production system and into your distribution channel. Oh yes, and you need a business model that yields an income.
This is why you don't go off on frollicks when you have a weak capital structure. A company needs free cash flow to pursue tangents and it needs folks running it who can access resources and who can grasp the sales opportunity. Wavexpress had about half of a strategy. The lump in the middle. And the solicitous board at Wave kept funding the enterprise as if both supply and demand were right around the corner.
I expect scrambls will operate much the same way, as it seems it is being run by much the same folks. And the folks for whom technology is the be-all and end-all will want to fund it forever, regardless of the dilution. The field of dreams model of building a business. Hope is all you need.
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