Response to Pure Folder on Lark Allen:
I understand that Lark Allen chose Wave over offers from a number of other companies, some fairly high profile, and that in late 1997, long before joining Wave, he had made a sizeable investment in the company's stock.
I'm not familiar with the reason behind Allen's leaving IBM, however I wouldn't be surprised if it were due to politics because that is fairly common in corporate circles, especially in large companies. If true, I wouldn't necessarily take it as a negative since political issues can often be irrational and counterproductive. Furthermore, Allen surely has allies still in place over at IBM.
I believe that the other guy who took early retirement from IBM to work with Wave is the one who is focusing on that relationship, while Allen is probably working with other potential partners. His real value to Wave may be with the relationships he has developed over the years throughout the industry, particularly in the area of e-commerce security which is becoming a key strategic issue with major OEMs. Implementation of the WaveMeter for this purpose may ultimately be the driving force behind the mass market penetration that we all hope will occur. This will fit well with Wave's strategy to put their meters in as many PCs as possible in order to sell secure content. To disagree with Doc Stone, I do believe that content distribution will prove to be the biggest factor in Wave's potential financial success because privacy issues will be greatly outweighed by the convenience and economy of selecting, using and/or owning software and other content of many kinds from the home or office. I agree with another comment on this thread that consumers may be more comfortable having their content purchasing data sourced from only one place rather than the hodgepodge it is now.
Let's all hang in there. The next major step for this company will hopefully occur around mid to late May. |
