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| Ocz Tech Regs | LSE:OCZ | London | Ordinary Share | COM SHS USD0.001 (REG S) |
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| 16/12/2014 | 08:43 | OCZ TECHNOLOGY: CHART AND DISCUSSION THREAD | 41 |
| 22/10/2014 | 16:28 | OCZ Technology | 2,771 |
| 22/10/2014 | 16:27 | OCZ, Well Worth Placing On The Watch List. | 183 |
| 06/5/2014 | 07:19 | OCZ Technology | 1,239 |
| 03/12/2013 | 20:16 | OCZ. In the right place, at the right time. | 1 |
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Posted at 27/11/2013 17:16 by ch131 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 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_s 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_s 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. |
Posted at 22/11/2013 07:20 by ch131 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.storagese 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. |
Posted at 14/11/2013 08:14 by ch131 Nice bit of news from storagereview. Panasonic have always had strong reliability with their brand, which is great for OCZ.hxxp://www.storagere 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. |
Posted at 06/11/2013 08:26 by ch131 OCZ stands idle as its stock tanks for the second day in a rowOCZ's stock falls to below $0.40 per share, is the end in sight for the storied SSD manufacturer? (NASDAQ:OCZ) By: Charles Gantt | Business, Financial & Legal News | Posted: 8 hours, 12 mins ago Comment | Print | Email to a Friend | Font Size: AA. Yesterday it appeared that OCZ's stock was in a downward fall that was unstoppable before leveling off near the closing bell at $0.73. Today the stock fell yet another 38-percent to just $0.39 per share at its lowest, and like yesterday it rebounded slightly and closed at $0.44 per share. ocz_stands_idle_as_i As of this posting, OCZ has yet to release an official statement, and this has further led to investor confidence falling. A quick Google search will turn up dozens of industry analyst questioning just how long the company has left before it is forced to fill bankruptcy, and even more complaints on forums across the internet where customers are complaining about failed Vertex SSD drives. While I am still mystified about the company's lack of response to this crisis, I have developed a new theory on what may be going on. A few weeks back we reported that Toshiba might be looking to buy OCZ outright, but nothing ever materialized from this. I have a very small suspicion that OCZ may be keeping quiet in order to force their price even lower to draw in someone looking to pick them up at what might be a steal. This would wash the company's leaders hands of things and they would get off with a nice payday. Read more at hxxp://www.tweaktown |
Posted at 15/10/2013 08:52 by ch131 Here we go- the rumours are starting again...RumorTT: Toshiba considering buying OCZ's Consumer division Toshiba is rumored to be looking into acquiring OCZ's consumer SSD division (TYO:6502, NASDAQ:OCZ) By: Charles Gantt | Storage News | Posted: 7 hours, 57 mins ago Comment | Print | Email to a Friend | Font Size: AA. 2013 has not been kind to the SSD manufacturer OCZ, and it appears that is just what some companies were holding out for. Sources have told TweakTown that electronics giant Toshiba is taking a serious look at buying the floundering companies consumer storage division. rumortt_toshiba_cons This could land Toshiba some very valuable technology that it would not have to license which could be very lucrative for the company. As for OCZ, this could be its saving grace, as the company continue to spiral downward towards a hard rock bottom. As soon as I saw this rumor come in, I messaged our Senior Storage Editor, Chris Ramseyer for his thoughts. "If the report is accurate this is a win-win for everybody. Toshiba will gain a controller to go with its flash and OCZ will escape from the low margin consumer market it created," Ramseyer Said. "OCZ CEO Ralph Schmitt recently stated that OCZ had issues in 2013 securing flash in large volumes. Toshiba 19nm NAND flash has been proven superior to IMFT 20nm flash yet most of OCZ's recent products shipped with IMFT 20nm flash due to Toshiba 19nm shortages." Honestly, I have to agree with him, and I have not seen anything exciting come out of OCZ on the consumer side of things in many months now, and I feel that Toshiba could take the IP from OCZ and create a new product that would greatly improve its Laptop, Tablet, and PC business. If the deal also comes with a NAND flash deal for OCZ it would work out well for the company. Read more at hxxp://www.tweaktown There might be some truth here, as the lawsuit 4%/6million if part of the co. is sold within 6 months clause suggested that a deal might be close. |
Posted at 11/9/2013 09:21 by ch131 Don't know about you guys, but I see this as great news. It doesn't sound like a company about to go bust does it? I think RS has secured either a partnership or some serious funding behind this. The steady stream of news this week suggests a build up to some long awaited good news, especially with the deadline nearinghxxp://ir.ocz.com/ne OCZ Technology Expands Research & Development Center in Orange County, California Download PDF Design Center Focuses on Enterprise Product Development in Complete Solid State Solutions SAN JOSE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/10/13 -- OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that it will expand its Research & Development (R&D) Center in Orange County, California which is focused on enterprise development for the company's next-generation SSDs. The company has a current presence in the area and is moving to a new expanded Irvine R&D location. "Orange County, California has a rich base of engineering talent covering semiconductors and storage that makes it a viable location for us to expand our design center," said James Tout, SVP of Global Engineering for OCZ Technology. "With a leading and widely recognized portfolio of SATA, SAS and PCIe-based solid-state solutions, we believe that the opening of our new OC-based design center will attract the professional resources and talent we need to create leading-edge, next-generation enterprise products for the storage industry." As the need for faster, more reliable and cost effective storage grows in the enterprise market, OCZ is committed to enabling customers with innovative flash hardware and software solutions that solve storage challenges by accelerating application performance, optimizing IT infrastructures, and enhancing overall manageability while delivering superior total cost of ownership. The company achieves this with a wide range of innovative SSDs, based on in-house technology, and combines them with our proprietary enterprise virtualization software to create complete solid state solutions that enable users to get faster and more reliable access to critical applications and data when they need it most. OCZ is accepting employment applications for hardware designers and firmware developers with storage experience to work in the new OC-based R&D center. Interested candidates should submit a resumé online at www.ocz.com/enterpri For more information on OCZ's leading enterprise portfolio of PCIe, SATA III and SAS SSDs, visit www.ocz.com/enterpri |
Posted at 30/5/2013 13:49 by ch131 More good news (although it's not the news we're waiting for). Despite previous history, OCZ do have great, innovative products. Currently trading higher premarket:http://ir.ocz.com/ne OCZ Technology Collaborates With Mellanox(R) Technologies to Optimize Microsoft SQL Server for Microsoft Always-On Environments Combination of Mellanox ConnectX(R)-3 EN 40GbE NIC With OCZ ZD-XL SQL Accelerator Replicates Database Volumes Faster and With High Availability Presented at Microsoft TechEd North America 2013, Booth #316 SAN JOSE, CA and SUNNYVALE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/30/13 -- OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, and Mellanox® Technologies (NASDAQ: MLNX) (TASE: MLNX), a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center and storage systems, have collaborated together to optimize Microsoft SQL Server applications in a Microsoft Always-On deployment that delivers flash I/O storage performance and high availability of data. These capabilities will be presented June 3rd through June 6th, in the Mellanox booth (#316) at the Microsoft TechEd North America 2013 Conference, New Orleans Morial Convention Center. The combination of the Mellanox ConnectX®-3 EN 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network interface card (NIC) with OCZ's ZD-XL SQL Accelerator replicates database volumes in a Microsoft SQL Server environment. The combined solutions deliver industry-leading Ethernet connectivity, intelligent and efficient cache and flash volume distribution of PCI Express (PCIe) flash resources as well as enabling High Availability (HA) services of Microsoft SQL Server installations. To achieve this innovative capability, the Microsoft SQL Server environment containing two servers (each using a ZD-XL SQL Accelerator and ConnectX-3 EN NIC) are connected using Microsoft SQL Server Always-On. High Availability of this environment is maintained by replicating the ZD-XL SQL Accelerator data using the Mellanox NIC to the secondary server. "This industry-first solution assures that performance will be maintained at accelerated levels through ZD-XL SQL Accelerator flash performance with our 40GbE NIC interconnection handling the replication of even the highest flash induced Microsoft SQL Server loads," said Motti Beck, Director of Enterprise Market Development for Mellanox Technologies. "We are very pleased to jointly develop this capability with OCZ enabling Microsoft SQL Server operations to continue from the point when a server fails, providing flash speed to end-users as if no problem had occurred." "We are equally excited to work with Mellanox on providing high bandwidth, high availability solutions, and with the ConnectX-3 EN NIC providing four times better Ethernet connectivity for data replication, is an ideal match for our ZD-XL SQL Accelerator in support of mission-critical Microsoft SQL Server applications," said Dr. Allon Cohen, Vice President of Software and Solutions for OCZ Technology. "The ability to provide this innovative acceleration and replication between flash resources enables Microsoft SQL Server environments to function at the speed of flash while retaining complete high availability." The Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN 40/56GbE NIC delivers high-bandwidth and industry-leading Ethernet connectivity for performance-driven server and storage applications in enterprise data centers, High Performance Computing (HPC) and embedded environments. Its low power and application acceleration for converged I/O infrastructures eliminate the need for multiple Ethernet connections to the server while maximizing server and storage performance throughput. This results in reduced operating costs and network complexity. More information is available at www.mellanox.com/eth OCZ's new ZD- XL SQL Accelerator is a plug-and-play flash acceleration solution optimized for Microsoft SQL Server deployments. It represents the convergence of enterprise hardware and software as one tightly integrated, optimized solution ensuring that appropriate and readily available data is on SSD flash when Microsoft SQL Server needs it. Plugging seamlessly into existing or new Microsoft SQL Server installations, ZD-XL SQL Accelerator provides on-host application-optimize About Microsoft TechEd North America 2013 Microsoft TechEd North America is the premier technical education and networking event for any technology professional interested in learning, connecting and exploring a broad set of current and soon-to-be-released Microsoft technologies, tools, platforms and services. The event is held at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center, from June 3-6, 2013. More information is available at www.northamerica.mst About Mellanox Technologies, Inc. Mellanox Technologies is a leading supplier of end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage. Mellanox interconnect solutions increase data center efficiency by providing the highest throughput and lowest latency, delivering data faster to applications and unlocking system performance capability. Mellanox offers a choice of fast interconnect products: adapters, switches, software, cables and silicon that accelerate application runtime and maximize business results for a wide range of markets including high performance computing, enterprise data centers, Web 2.0, cloud, storage and financial services. More information is available at www.mellanox.com. About OCZ Technology Group, Inc. Founded in 2002, San Jose, CA-based OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (OCZ) is a global leader in the design, manufacturing, and distribution of high-performance solid-state storage solutions and premium computer components. Offering a complete spectrum of solid-state drives (SSDs), OCZ provides SSDs in a variety of form factors and interfaces (i.e. PCIe, SAS and SATA) to address a wide range of client and enterprise applications. Having developed firmware and controller platforms, to virtualization and endurance extending technologies, the company delivers vertically integrated solutions enabling transformational approaches to how digital data is captured, stored, accessed, analyzed and leveraged by customers. More information is available at www.ocz.com. |
Posted at 10/10/2012 21:29 by ch131 OCZ: Accounting Issues And A New CEO Who Gets It - Is A Turnaround Likely? October 10, 2012 | 19 commentsby: Ashraf Eassa | about: OCZ, includes: MRVL, PLXT, STX Disclosure: I am long OCZ, MRVL. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...) OCZ Technology Group (OCZ), a manufacturer of solid state drives, recently announced a number of material news items. To recap the prepared remarks of the conference call: The revised revenue guidance issued on September 5th for the most recent quarter can "no longer be relied upon" due to "customer incentives that were in excess of what was normal and customary in the past" New CEO: Ralph Schmitt, Former CEO of PLX Technologies (PLXT) In Q2, there was a huge emphasis to "grow market share at all costs", so "extraordinary incentives" were undertaken (rebates), so the company will be delaying its SEC filings to ensure a "proper accounting treatment can be applied to this event" The company's cash position has declined and the company has now accessed its credit facility Future actions will be focused on "innovation, quality, and profitability" Negative gross margins Earnings call will be rescheduled as quickly as possible. At the call, the Q&A session was particularly helpful, with the following key points noted: While the company is still undergoing a review process, it does not seem likely that the company will have to restate prior results - fraud is pretty much off the table. Company sees itself "rationalizing the product line" and further sees that the diversity of product line is inappropriate for a company of OCZ's size. OCZ plans to migrate away from more commoditized areas of SSDs and move more into the high end of both the client market as well as pushing further into the enterprise market. OCZ will be focusing on differentiation on the technology side (controllers, software) - the firm will not try to go head-to-head against the NAND flash fabs The company is "making significant progress" with its previously mentioned "Web 2.0 deals," and these are "key focuses" for the company, but no comments on particular customers. Righting The Ship With A Sound Plan The new CEO is taking OCZ in the right direction. OCZ's strength has been in its strong acquisitions (Indilinx, PLX team, SANRAD) which have positioned the company to have a healthy long term outlook in the enterprise space. The problem, of course, was that previous management wanted to build OCZ to be, in the words of ex-CEO Ryan Petersen, "the next Seagate (STX)." Unfortunately, this meant trying to compete for consumer market share on highly commoditized drives while having a significant cost disadvantage compared to the NAND fabs. The direction is to focus on higher margin businesses where the key differentiation occurs on the technological level (controller, software, features), rather than on a volume level. This will likely result in less-than-explosive revenue growth, but this will also lead to healthier, profitable growth. In fact, Mr. Schmitt made it abundantly clear that the company was going to focus on profitability and on delivering shareholder value - something that ex-CEO Ryan Petersen did not seem to give much priority. Is It Too Late, Though? The pressing question, though, is whether it's too late for the company. Fortunately, OCZ already has its "Barefoot 3" controller, its jointly developed PCI-E "Kilimanjaro" platform with Marvell (MRVL), and an enterprise flash caching software stack courtesy of its SANRAD acquisition. There is a lot of value here, as the company can focus its efforts on the following business opportunities: High gross margin PCI-E flash caching solutions Licensing controller technology to the consumer SSD players Selling high end, higher gross margin consumer drives, with an emphasis on high cost, high quality devices (similar to what Samsung and Plextor do) Selling SATA/SAS hard-drive form factor SSDs into enterprise usage. This would leverage the in-house controller development as well as consumer SSD development efforts This would be a small, well-oiled, focused business. The company's fairly large headcount of 700 could be reduced significantly in restructuring efforts, relieving operating expense pressures that the company has continually faced. Further, once the company has proven itself to be a flexible, agile player in these key, high margin SSD-related businesses, it would naturally become an acquisition target for the larger storage companies. However for this to happen, the company needs to be lean and have established a track record of technological leadership and business execution. That being said, the company's cash burn and its tapping of the credit facility means that every dollar needs to be very carefully spent. There's no room for missteps, and it would only take a few fundamentally bone-headed moves to sink the company at this point. A Speculative Buy In light of these developments, and in light of the share price decline, OCZ is a buy for speculative investors. There's still a lot of uncertainty here, and as I noted above, the company's financial position is one of extreme vulnerability. New management will have to fight to keep the company alive, but if a turnaround is successful, OCZ can be a very prosperous player in the high growth solid state drive market, albeit in a slightly different fashion that founder Ryan Petersen had envisioned. It won't be the next Seagate, but it could be the next SandForce. |
Posted at 18/9/2012 13:13 by ch131 OCZ's CEO Resigns: Can New Management Solve The Firm's Problems? September 18, 2012 | 2 commentsby: Ashraf Eassa | about: OCZ, includes: FIO, INTC, LSI, MRVL, MU Disclosure: I am long INTC, MRVL. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...) OCZ Technology Group (OCZ) has had a rough ride over the last several months. Here's a timeline of the hardships that the company and its shareholders have faced over the last several months: 5/1- OCZ reports in-line quarter, guides for an in-line FQ1 2013, and issues full-year guidance well above analyst estimates of $512M at $630M - $700M. Reports a wider net loss than expected 7/10 - OCZ comes in slightly below the midpoint of analyst estimates on the revenue side while significantly missing on the bottom line. Company notes record bookings, but supply issue involving a voltage regulator prevented the firm from shipping all of its orders 8/10 - CFO Arthur Knapp announces his intent to retire 9/5 - OCZ issues a revenue warning for FQ2 2013, stating that it will come in at $110M - $120M instead of the guided $130M - $140M. Management claims that this is due to a shortage of NAND flash and that the company achieved bookings in excess of its expectations 9/17 - CEO Ryan Petersen announces his resignation and names Alex Mei as interim CEO Now that both the CEO and the CFO have left the building, the way is paved for new management. Fundamentally, OCZ's main problem has not been with its technology but with its inability to attain profitability. The question is whether OCZ's current strategy will eventually lead to profits or if a major fundamental shift in strategy is necessary. Gross Margin Expansion: On The Right Track One thing that OCZ has done right is aggressively pursue vertical integration. The purchase of Indilinx in an all-stock $32M deal gave OCZ the advantage of its own controller technology. Typically, SSD manufacturers, including even the major NAND fabs such as Intel (INTC) and Micron (MU), license controller technology from a third party. OCZ's move to increasingly in-house technology obviously helped the company to gain a margin advantage over the hordes of "me too" SSD makers that licensed technology from Marvell (MRVL) or LSI (LSI). Further, OCZ was attempting to shift more of its business to the enterprise side, particularly flash caching with PCI-E SSDs and specialized virtualization software (courtesy of the SANRAD acquisition). These areas have much higher gross margins than the consumer space, so success here can certainly improve margins and overall profitability. Operating Expenses: Expand Or Die A major point that skeptics and short sellers point to is the massive increase in operating expenses over the last few quarters. However, these operating expenses are primarily due to R&D for next generation SSD controllers and to sales and marketing. In order to maintain a competitive position with internally developed controller technology against giants such as Marvell and LSI, the company needs to spend aggressively. Further, in order to see the continued sales ramp (as evidenced by record bookings in the two most recent quarters), the sales force must be expanded. Further, for enterprise solutions, R&D must be performed on both the hardware/controller side, as well as the software side. Fusion-io's (FIO) primary competitive advantage is that its software stack is currently unparalleled. However, at the most recent dbAcess 2012 Technology Conference, Ryan Petersen noted that the company has made significant stride to become more competitive on the software side. In the technology space, cutting down on R&D is the most sure-fire way to ensure that competitors will out-innovate you. OCZ's decision to continue to spend here despite the (hopefully short term) pain on the bottom line is very much the correct one. OCZ's Problems: It's About NAND The major disadvantage that OCZ (and all other fabless SSD manufacturers) faces is NAND procurement. OCZ relies on foundries such as Intel, Micron, and Samsung in order to get NAND flash. In the enterprise flash caching/PCI-E space, the NAND isn't really the biggest problem: the gross margins on the devices themselves are in the 50%+ range and a big part of the solution is actually the software. However, in the hard-disk replacement (SATA/SAS) space, the NAND flash is the biggest part of the bill-of-materials. The companies that can build their own NAND flash have a natural cost advantage over those companies that need to buy the NAND from the producers. Unfortunately, as OCZ's primary strategic direction involves the high volume hard-disk replacement, which means that getting NAND at competitive prices is critical. The firm is working on establishing a partnership with a NAND flash fab, and such a deal could prove to be a very significant positive catalyst for the stock as well as gross margins. Will New Management Make A Difference? Fundamentally, it seems that OCZ's strategy is as sound as it gets. The firm has done everything reasonably possible to increase gross margins (internal controllers, internal wafer processing, working on NAND deal, and expansion into high margin enterprise). The operating expenses also seem necessary to fuel the technological innovation and sales force needed to grow revenues at a rapid rate. At this point, OCZ needs to focus on being able to substantially increase revenue, while keeping gross margins in an uptrend. The firm was already on track to do so but was held back by shortages of key components in two consecutive quarters, marring the otherwise stellar bookings. So, will new management make a difference? Maybe. If OCZ pulls out of the consumer drive segment, focuses on providing full solutions in the enterprise space (like Fusion-io) and in providing controller technology to the hard-disk replacement market (like LSI or Marvell), then the dependence on NAND goes away. In fact, OCZ's highly touted advantages to moving to new NAND nodes more quickly than any other drive makers due to its controller technology could make it a very viable player in the SSD controller market. This would not be such a high growth area, but the gross margins are very nice, and the "growth" part of the equation could be satisfied by providing solutions exclusively to the enterprise sector. Selling The Company? Another move for the company would be to simply sell itself out. SandForce was bought out by LSI for $322M and all it had was a controller (albeit a very popular one), so a similar price for OCZ's Indilinx division is not unreasonable, especially as it proves itself with the fully internally designed "Barefoot 3". Further, OCZ touts its ability to move to new NAND flash nodes faster than any other company, so OCZ's controller technology could potentially be worth even more. But OCZ also has an entire enterprise product lineup, including very fast PCI-E drives with specialized virtualization software included. At the dbAccess 2012 Technology Conference, Ryan Petersen noted that there were really only two major players in the PCI-E space: itself and Fusion-io, the latter of which is valued at well over $2B as of last close. High risk speculators may find picking up shares of OCZ on the cheap to be lucrative in the case of a buyout or a merger. Conclusion The main problem with the CEO's departure is that he was the founder of the company. The vision was his and with his rather large stake (~4%) in the company, there was a very real push to succeed. However, there are certainly viable directions that the company can be taken to achieve profitability sooner, as outlined above, and I believe that the board of directors as well as the major institutions will be looking for progress in profitability sooner rather than later. This may very well affect the choice of Petersen's successor as well as very materially affect the company's direction. Additional disclosure: I may initiate a long position in OCZ over the next 72 hours. |
Posted at 01/9/2012 07:39 by bluesbreaker "Why Might Seagate Not Want OCZ Technology Group? OCZ, STX"By Bryan Murphy Aug 29, 2012 7:55:33 AM PDT "In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I've been a fan of - and posted commentaries to that effect - OCZ Technology Group Inc. (NASDAQ:OCZ) for a while. From my view, the company's solid-state disc-drive (SSD) technology is second to none, as the organization also designs and makes the controllers for it. Of course, it doesn't hurt my bullish opinion to know that Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) has been pegged as a potential suitor for quite some time. If I had to give odds, I'd still suggest there's a 50/50 shot that Seagate Technology PLC will acquire OCZ Technology Group at some point in the foreseeable future.... which are actually pretty good odds, as far as buyout handicapping goes. But, it would be reckless to not look at the other side of the coin - why would STX not want to buy OCZ? "Just for perspective, Seagate has changed its tune on SSDs over the past couple of years. Specifically, in the STX conference call following the earnings announcement made in October of 2010, CEO Steve Luczo felt hard disc drives were the future, and that the SSD technology would still only be needed for hybrid (combo) drives where the best of both worlds - startup speed and capacity - could be tapped. "By June of this year, Seagate Technology PLC was buying Densbits, best known for its 'Memory Modem' used in a NAND Flash technology environment... the diametrical opposite of the bias in favor of hard disc drives and away from solid state drives less then two years prior. "Bodes well for OCZ Technology Group Inc.? That's not even the half of it. In the conference call following the company's most recent earnings results announcement, Chief Financial Officer Pat O'Malley flat out said Seagate Technology "would be interested in buying an SSD maker that has a significant share of the enterprise market." "That's where the assumptions of an OCZ buyout start to stumble. OCZ Technology Group doesn't have a 'significant' presence in the enterprise market. Seagate's chiefs have also stated a preference for a profitable SSD maker, which OCZ is not. So, OCZ may not be in the running after all, right? "Not so fast. While the SSD company may have been built on the idea of providing enterprise-level technology to consumer-class customers, that's not a permanent condition. The company featured its latest enterprise storage solutions at this year's Flash Memory Summit, and showcased its SSD and virtualization platform at this year's VMWare conference; both venues attract a good-sized enterprise crowd. Point being, OCZ Technology Group may not have a major enterprise presence yet, but then again, it's never really gone after than market until now. If Seagate was able to use its name and presence in the enterprise market to push OCZ-caliber solid state drives, the union could work well. "And make no mistake - OCZ solid state drives may be the best available. The reviews are consistently top-notch. A lot of that positive feedback may be because OCZ Technology also designs and applies its own (patented) controller technology to its drives. And that technology may be worth more to Seagate than a large enterprise presence. "Bluntly, I still don't know if the odds of an OCZ acquisition by Seagate Technology PLC are as strong as the rest of the market believes; STX has been oddly adamant about 'enterprise presence' and 'profitable', apparently without recognizing that Seagate could actually use its own marketing muscle to penetrate the enterprise market, and without recognizing that OCZ is actually on the road to profitability... and the stock's cheap in those terms. The forward-looking P/E of 6.2 is about is bargain-priced as any company in the SSD space is going to be, current or future. Just because it makes sense to me doesn't mean the folks at Seagate see it. Either way though, I still see OCZ as a $10.00 stock within the foreseeable future, as a buyout target, or on its own." |
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