Ocz Technology Share Discussion Threads

[aladd1n] 03/12/2013 20:23

Ernest

He he
Sold at 9.70 dollars final lot

He he

[aladd1n] 03/12/2013 20:19

Orient

Hope u have made loads of losses
on OCZ

LOK

[aladd1n] 03/12/2013 20:16

Hello Orient

How much are your losses?

[ch131] 02/12/2013 21:51

That's unlucky, FailedQS, seems a bit odd.

It's probably too late now (although with the massive volume on an up day today, way more than the drop, something's going on! Short covering perhaps, any thoughts anyone?) but I would contact another broker that you know deals in OCZ, and tell them your experience with Barclays and see if they can help you, before opening an account and sending off the certificate again. I personally use TD Waterhouse, who are ok, not great though, because they sting you on the exchange rate. Is anyone here using Barclays for trading OCZ?

[failedqs] 02/12/2013 19:48

In my earlier post 1200, I mentioned I was trying to register my shares with Barclays, and the process was laborious to say the least.

I'd hoped to get them registered so I could sell them and retrieve something before they went belly up.

However, yet again I have been foiled I'm afraid..... Barclays sent me back the share certificate which I received today, with the message:

"We are unable to process the enclosed certificate as the custodian has advised they cannot transfer "penny stocks". Stocks with a share type of less than 1 US dollar are regarded as penny stocks and your OCZ Technology Group shares have a share type of USD0.0025. Please contact Computershare USA for further information"

Good god, does this mean that I could never have sold them?.... I had a paper cert which was issued just last month by Computershare, but nobody will sell on the basis of a paper cert, so I had to transfer them to my Barclays nominee account to sell them, but being USD0.0025 type they cannot be registered? Looks like the perfect dead end to me......

At first I thought it was because of the current low share price, but its clear it is because of the share type itself......

Anyone got any suggestions? Obviously its too late for me, these will go belly up in the next day or so, and I will have to wait and write them off against capital gains tax now, but it would be useful for future information!!

Sad end to a sad year for OCZ and me!!!

[bluesbreaker] 28/11/2013 10:44

Sorry for anyone who has taken losses on these. Enjoyed my time on here a couple of years ago and good company exchanging views with many of the posters. Good luck and fortune to all. bb

[bozzy_s] 28/11/2013 01:03

Sad to see this. Hope everyone managed to sell some when they 130-bagged after switching from AIM to Nasdaq. I've forever regretted not holding some when they delisted from AIM - a potential £3k to £390k fortune I missed by selling just before suspension.

Oddly they are still trading at around 150% ahead of their AIM delist price.

[jimmy321] 27/11/2013 22:17

My sell at the bottom of the spike on the 5th does not look so bad now, sorry for anyone who held on you live and learn.

[beeks of arabia] 27/11/2013 21:46

Saddened but not surprised.

Another example of how having a great ground breaking product does not necessarily equate to a great corporate entity!

[jack jebb] 27/11/2013 20:13

What a rollercoaster. Those shorts were clearly clued up.

[ch131] 27/11/2013 20:06

Yes, sad day. Sorry for everyone here. Shares are still trading, as Toshiba will be paying something for them- they're not totally worthless, but OCZ is no more.

[swiftnick] 27/11/2013 19:56

Bizarrely the shares are still trading. Around 18c as I write. Would be surprised if the shareholders got anything.

[0rient] 27/11/2013 19:52

End of an almighty roller-coaster ride..hope no-one had many left in!

[legolass] 27/11/2013 19:27

Yes sad day. I sold 60pct of mine and made a good profit but still a sizeable loss on the balance. Sorry to everyone that has lost money

[failedqs] 27/11/2013 19:19

Its official - OCZ filing for bankruptcy.......
Toshiba buying the assets as part of the bankruptcy proceedings.
Game over...............

[ch131] 27/11/2013 17:16

More conjecture from tweaktown, but not a very good article, claiming they have been suspended for being under $1 for thirty days- not true, the price dropped under $1 on the 4th November. No one knows what's going on.

hxxp://www.tweaktown.com/news/34161/breakingtt-trading-suspended-on-ocz-stock-price-frozen-at-0-63/index.html




BreakingTT: Trading suspended on OCZ stock, price frozen at $0.63

Trading suspended on OCZ stock, company in dire straights as financial troubles mount, headed for bankruptcy or buyout (NASDAQ:OCZ)

By: Charles Gantt | Business, Financial & Legal News | Posted: 43 mins ago
























Today it appears that the ongoing saga of OCZ's roller coaster ride on the stock market has finally came to an end. Earlier this morning, weeks of ups and downs in the company's share price as well as rumors of massive financial troubles finally came to a head when trading was halted on the SSD manufactures stock.




breakingtt_trading_suspended_on_ocz_stock_price_frozen_at_0_63




Trading was suspended after shares failed to rebound above $1 over the last 30 days, and solidifies rumors that the company is quickly approaching its end of life. I have reached out to several industry analyst, and the general conscious appears to be that the company will either file bankruptcy very soon, or someone like Toshiba will swoop in and buy OCZ for pennies on the dollar. Personally I am expecting them to be bought out, as that makes the most sense at this point.




breakingtt_trading_suspended_on_ocz_stock_price_frozen_at_0_63




A few weeks back, our own Chris Ramseyer all but predicted today's outcome in his review of OCZ Vector 150 120GB SSD. Chris poised a question, asking if OCZ would be around six months from now, and I guess the answer has arrived. Below is an excerpt from that review.




Let's tackle the elephant in the room or at least attempt to. The topic of OCZ's long term, err... are they still going to be around six months from now or not. That's what we need to think about. No company has done more for the consumer SSD market than OCZ, and although we all have a bit of love for OCZ in our hearts, this is a cut throat, dog eat dog world. The big fab companies are ready to kick everyone else out, make this a commodity market like they did DRAM, something OCZ has a little experience with since they were drove out of that market just before going all-in with the SSD market. This is an important topic because OCZ has a five-year warranty and Vector 150 is a premium product that sells at a premium price.



First, let me say I don't like venturing into this area. I'm not a broker, I don't know anything about the markets other than what the papers my broker sends to me each month. Everyone I've spoken with who knows, some even obsess about Wall Street, say that OCZ is done for as the company they are now. Their bank account supports a run until the end of the year and after that the money is gone. The company owes money; some of the loans were taken out with high interest rates. That's not a good sign, it's actually a sign of desperation. OCZ has IP, they even have a controller, although some journalists have doubts if Barefoot 3 is really OCZ or if it's another reworked Marvell, doubt cast after Vertex 4. The problem is the IP and the controller are collateral for the loans, at least as I understand it.



I'm not going to go as far as to say that OCZ can't honor their warranties six months from now, but there are several scenarios that lead to warranties not being honored. Not just that, but future firmware development, a world without OCZ as it is now is a possibility.

[ch131] 27/11/2013 16:54

Halted a few hours now. Don't have any experience of this, but would have thought bankruptcy would be a relatively simple announcement. The day before thanksgiving as well. This may involve other parties- here's hoping...

[legolass] 27/11/2013 16:42

Awaiting material info. Best case a buyout but i fear bad news. This scenario was always certain....they dont have enough cash to last to xmas

[failedqs] 27/11/2013 15:17

I can't find any press release - what's happened, does anyone know?

[ch131] 22/11/2013 07:20

Your welcome, Cervelo. The first of many I think. Take a look at this article just released on storage search, which I would trust far more than seeking alpha. It's based around an interview last week with RS and Alex Mei.

hxxp://www.storagesearch.com/ssd.html



So, Dear Reader - you think you already know this leading SSD company? - What can I say to change your mind?

Editor:- November 21, 2013 - You'd think that in this age of SSD rumors, tweets and superbloggers - and particularly given the nature of the SSD market itself being - as it is - so intimately bound up with the sub-atomic technologies of disseminating information quickly around the far corners of the internet - like some kind of higs-boson data-quark on steroids - gathering in the distant CPU server clan atoms while concurrently pre-accelerating their local impact by collapsing space-time - that it would be remarkable indeed not to know everything it's important to know about the recent achievements of a leading SSD company - which has already been stared and glared at publicly for longer than seems decent or comfortable - and which is rarely out of the news - even when the company itself is trying to have a rest day in the SSD PR factory.

You could say - more than enough has been written about this company already. And it's almost certain you've engaged with them in some way - or thought about them. You've got your views safely tucked away in the mental box which holds a small bunch of SSD companies whose names you can remember - and about which you can recall some interesting stories - without having to look at a web page.

If anyone were to ask you - what do you think this company might be doing next year? - compared to where the company thought it was heading a few years ago - you'd probably say - it's like one of those high flying rockets where the engine misfired or the wrong numbers were typed into the navigation system. We're seeing a lot of those in the SSD market. - And maybe one day one of those rumor vapors which have been misting around the company for the past few years might come true. But you don't think they are the force they used to be - and while their products retain a firm foothold in the market - you see that more as a consolidation of what they did before - rather than as a springboard to new greatness.

Like you - I have those attitudes too about a lot of SSD companies.

Unlike you - I'm observing more companies - so the number of seconds or minutes (each year) that I can devote to thinking about any individual company (easily calculable) - is pretty small. Which means that whenever I reach a decision about how to compartmentalise any particular company - I do it fast. It's done.

Working on web time I don't have any realistic alternative to that - "decide in haste" thing but I neither do I hanker after "repenting at leisure" either - so to be on one the safe side - I also periodically revisit my firmest held assumptions from time to time to see if they're still valid.

You can see lots of examples of this revisonism if you trawl down my past comments about any SSD company which has been in the market for more than a couple of years.

If they change what they do - I change my views. And the landscape of the SSD market is changing all the time too. So sometimes the strategy which was right for a company in one year is the wrong thing to do in another. You get the general idea - and I'm sure it works the same for many of you too.

Now I know that some of you - SSD leaders, analysts, investors, users and even SSD bloggers - often spend much more time thinking about a single SSD company or small number of companies than I could ever do.

When we talk - as we sometimes do - you often know a staggering amount of pinpoint pixel level detail. I'm more into seeing an impressionistic wider picture.

You see a new product.

I see a bunch of decisions predetermined by architecture and location (time and place) in the market.

You see this quarter's revenue, cash-flow, operating expenses and analyst conference call.

I see this as just one of many raindrops which will one day form an SSD ocean.

Despite those differences - our conversations Dear Reader often end something like this.

You update your model. I update mine. We all think we see a little clearer than we did before.

So how can I get you to change your mind about a company about which you already have very clear and set views?

Time for me to get to the point.

Like many of you - I've been interested in seeing how OCZ has been doing under the stewardship of the crash response team under the leadership of Ralph Schmitt - who became the company's CEO in October 2012 - and who almost exactly a year ago was reported as saying "we've got the train back on the track".

In hindsight that derailment analogy - which referred to OCZ's predicament in the first half of 2012 was apt - because even though the train can still be been seen chugging along at a more cautious speed in about the same direction - if you turn around and look back from whence it came - you can see a lot of parts have been left strewn by the wayside - and it's only recently that the train regulator has felt confident enough to stick back on the front of the engine a new clean shiny badge of safety conformance.

On the surface - a few weeks ago - it sure looked like everything that one needed to know about OCZ was already being reported on and being said. But I felt uneasy.

I had seen several clues that the company had been doing much more than simply fire-fighting and fixing a derailment - and if this had been any other SSD company then either they (or analysts like me) would have been talking much more about some of these matters. But those other aspects were either hidden behind the smoke of the clearup operation or not deemed important enough by the company to talk about - as their likely consequences would be more quarters in a future which was already fogged by rumor and speculation.

So I thought it would be a good time to either confirm or clarify what was happening at OCZ in a number of strategic areas. And the only way I could do that would be to have a chat with Ralph Schmit. So I put in a request - and the answer came back almost immediately that he looked forward to having a chat with me too.

So this is a summary of some of the things I talked about last week with Ralph Schmitt CEO and Alex Mei CMO at OCZ.

As I hadn't spoken to Ralph or Alex before I thought I'd start by saying that I wasn't interested in asking them to comment about any of the acquisition rumors which have been circling around their company. I mentioned another recent rumor - related to another SSD company - which was ridiculous for anyone who knew the specifics of the 2 named companies. I told Ralph I think these speculations are often started by people who have vested positions in one of the company's shares.

I also know that what I write can have an influence. So people try to influence me. Apart from the obvious lobbying for attention - I told him there was an unusual situation last month when someone apparently generated some false SSD reader traffic which to my eyes looked like a possible attempt to emulate the kind of activity seen prior to an acquisition. I told the company concerned and I didn't write about it publicly at the time. So if that was the aim - it was thwarted. If I had been tricked into writing about it I would have passed the details on to the authorities.

That kind of acquisition fever goes another way too. I told Ralph I had been talking to a military SSD company recently whose name I didn't divulge due to a news embargo at the time - and I told the marketing conatct at this military SSD company how hard it was to get any details about their SSD controller architecture - especially as it played such an important part in almost every new product story which they were trying to get people like me to write about. I said to that company - I infer from that your company doesn't have any imminent plans to get acquired, seek massive VC investments or do an IPO – otherwise those controller details would be all over your website. (This lack of any need for such funding - because they are profitable anyway - was confirmed by the mil company - although I would have been happier just to have gotten the technical data I had been asking for.)

Ralph knew what I was talking about. And most of you too have seen the kind of activity in private companies where they splatter their SSD IP all over YouTube as if to say - I've got a great controller - so please buy my company.

As we had already touched on the topics of acqusitions and controllers I asked Ralph - what did OCZ really think when LSI said it was acquiring SandForce? (October 2011) Wasn't it a shock having one of your strategic suppliers suddenly turn into a competitor?

Ralph said that OCZ had already considered the possibility that SandForce would get acquired - and had even looked into possibly acquiring it. But OCZ thought the price was too high - for it to have worked out for them.

That got us onto the subject of OCZ's barefoot controller - which evolved from OCZ's acquisiton of Indilinx in 2011.

I said - I've heard from other sources (readers) that this controller does incorporate adaptive R/W technology - and that's how I listed it - when I published my list of the 10 companies in the market back in the 1st half of 2012. Any other company which had this type of technology would be saying much more about it - as it's been such a strategically important technology. But I hadn't seen any original design architecture details from OCZ itself - and I couldn't find anything about this parameter on OCZ's web site.

Alex confirmed - yes the current controller - which is aimed at the consumer market - does use adaptive R/W technology. That's what has enabled OCZ to efficiently customize its SSDs within consumer applications.

Ralph said the main reason they don't have the controller details publicly on their site is because its main use is within OCZ's own SSDs. He said it's hard to monetize the controllers as chip level products. And although OCZ has supplied this controller to a few strategic SSD companies - OCZ itself remains the most important user of this design. I also got the impression that OCZ is moving towards being able to make nearly all its consumer SSDs using its own controllers.

I wanted to move onto the enterprise SSD market - and what OCZ was doing there.

I said I've been impressed by the value for money which OCZ had got when it acquired SANRAD in January 2012.

I was trying to figure out what were the characteristics of OCZ's enterprise customers? - Particulalry those using their PCIe SSDs. I had guessed - from knowing the market and partly from emails from early customers - that OCZ was probably getting most of its business from smaller enterprises - the kind of users which many of the other enterprise SSD companies haven't got to yet - because it's been easier for them to aim at bigger organizations. As I've said before on these pages - OCZ is more accessible to do business with - for many of these small users - because its sales started from the level of getting a customer even if they're only buying one SSD.

Ralph said - I was right about this enterprise profile - and he said most of their enterprise customers are probably in a category which the bigger enterprise SSD companies would call "tier 2" and "tier 3" users. For these customers - who have applications at this scale of installation - OCZ's PCIe SSDs - when bundled with the VXL software (which started at SANRAD) - gives users almost everything they need in a complete SSD system. Offering what he called - "A full solution for the smaller enterprise."

I said - what's remarkable is that OCZ is doing all this business development in a segment of the enterprise - which when added up is huge - and most of your competitors haven't touched it yet because they regard it as being too difficult to reach and not worth their investment yet - so in a few years time all that marketing experience gained from what you're learning now will have enormous upside potential. And when your financial levers get freed up again - your investment in learning this market now will give you great competitive advantages.

Ralph didn't disagree with that. He cautioned me that the consequence of having an enterprise customer base with these characteristics is that each customer might only make a small number of purchases. On the other hand it meant that if OCZ's enterprise revenue - was aggregating a lot of these smaller customers - it could be more consistent and predictable than that of some other SSD competitors who had reported "big pops of revenue" to a single web company or a big oem. OCZ was starting to see interest in its enterprise SSDs from bigger systems companies too - but that was stemming from the fact they had mutual customers.

On the subject of enterprise SSDs and software - Ralph said that OCZ has been hiring more firmware engineers to grow their capabilities in this market.

That got me onto the subject of a new enterprise controller design - which Ralph and Alex told me about - which will be a completely new design which also leverages the adaptive R/W technology etc from their existing barefoot but which is better optimized for high performance PCIe SSDs. I did learn the date and some of the characteritics - but I won't say any more about that here - because the details could change and it would be better for that new controller to star in its own news show.

I didn't broach the subject of comparing OCZ's new controller design with LSI's new 3rd generation controller - which was launched this week - because that was under embargo at that time.

Thinking about it now - I don't think it really matters whether OCZ's new enterprise SSD controller emerges with chip level performance specs which are higher, lower or about the same as LSI.

That's because the key differentiator in any related PCIe SSD would still be the relative strength and usefulness of the associated software.

For LSI - the caching software they offer - is less strategically bound to their controller sales - because most of their SSD oems will use their own choice of different software.

For OCZ - however - the oppsoite is true. The things OCZ is learning from their VXL customer base will make them just as sticky in this segment of the market as Fusion-io is in their own neck of the enterprise - in very large installations. These reasons for preferring different suppliers of PCIe SSDs began to be clear a few years ago - and are becoming more concrete.

At the end of our conversation I thanked Ralph and Alex for nailing down and confirming a bunch of guesses and also introducing me to some new insights which point towards OCZ evolving into a much more soundly based competitor in the SSD market in the next few years than most people might have imagined.

Although OCZ still has to be super cautious and prove that it can work as a sound business operating under the financial constraints it has now - it seems to me that this company - which once operated in too many markets and was master of none - has been able to judiciously select some market niches and ways to sustain competitive advantage in them - especially in the unmined vast regions of the enterprise SSD market - which could put it a year or so down the track - ahead of the SSD business learning curve.

[cervelo] 14/11/2013 11:55

That's the first bit of positive news in quite a while... Thanks ch

[ch131] 14/11/2013 08:14

Nice bit of news from storagereview. Panasonic have always had strong reliability with their brand, which is great for OCZ.

hxxp://www.storagereview.com/panasonic_to_license_ocz_barefoot_3_controller_and_ssd_design_exclusive

Panasonic To License OCZ Barefoot 3 Controller and SSD Design - EXCLUSIVE

StorageReview has come upon information that OCZ and Panasonic have formed a licensing deal to market and sell Panasonic branded Indilinx Barefoot SSDs. Panasonic is launching two SSDs initially, one dubbed Premium and one Premium Pro. The Panasonic Premium is due to ship almost immediately, the Premium Pro early 2014. The drives will be available largely in the APAC region where the Panasonic brand is very strong, with additional distribution to follow. This marks the first ever OCZ licensing deal and is a clear benefit of the Indilinx acquisition and the resulting Barefoot SSD controller technology.



The Panasonic Premium SSD comes in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities with top end read and write throughput of 540MB/s and 530MB/s and read and write IOPS of 85,000 and 90,000. More interesting than the spec sheet though is the controller behind these drives, none other than the OCZ Indilinx Barefoot (Barefore) 3; the same controller inside the recently launched OCZ Vector 150.



Careful observers will also note the Panasonic SSD uses the same case and even matches details as minute as the product label design on the back of the drive. OCZ has clearly supported Panasonic in every aspect of creating the drive. While likely to be very similar to the Vector SSDs OCZ sells, Panasonic could of course have OCZ tune the SSD via firmware or subtle hardware changes to make their drives appropriate for the geography and markets they intend to sell in to. There is no indication yet as to what exactly the Premium Pro will entail, but it's likely an over-provisioned drive that is tuned for performance enthusiasts.



While neither party has yet announced the licensing or partnership deal officially yet, it's logical to assume that Panasonic wanted immediate access to the SSD market in APAC. Rather than use a SandForce, LAMD or Marvell design, they went with OCZ, which is a tremendous validation for the Barefoot platform from a massive consumer brand. For OCZ the deal opens up greater access to the APAC region where OCZ has little market share; OCZ is much stronger in the America's and Europe.

Full details of this story are still emerging, we will update when we have more.