Who says the dot.com days ever ended? Phorm is reducing its cash burn to a hefty £1.1m a month, after clocking up 51% higher annual operating losses of $49.8m in 2008 - all without yet having any income from anything but interest. Costs boomed in the second half of the year but the company claims to have gotten on top of things in Q4.
What on earth is Phorm spending on? The PDF tells us - $7.1m went on research and development, but the biggest cost category was $42m in 'sales and administrative expenses', including $26.6m in staff costs - salaries grew to $15.7m and severance compensation was $3.6m, mostly after scrapping the US-centric directors board.
The company raised $65m through share placements in March 2008 and finished 2008 with $23.2m cash in the bank. But that evaporated to just $12.8m by this May 31, so it had to raise another $24.2m earlier this month. Until then, chief executive Kent Ertugrul's stake was 18.78%, he was the only director-level shareholder listed.
Phorm says the investment will help it "move forward to commercial deployment in the UK and Korea whilst providing funds to support our business development efforts with ISPs in other markets". In other words, it's spending big millions to support itself in the hope it can shake off its reputation. It now reckons it "has adequate resources to ... continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future".
The outfit says it has "engagement with ISPs in 15 markets, including eight of the top 10 globally", but - beyond the completed BT (NYSE: BT) trial, ongoing Korean trial and the on-hold agreements with TalkTalk and Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) - there are no other details, only: "Although considerable time has elapsed between announcements with our ISP partners, much work continues to be done in the background.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Virgin tells customer: we've dropped Phorm
Virgin Media is writing to customers to tell them it has dropped controversial web advertising service Phorm - even though it hasn't.
Peter Bayliss, a reader of PC Pro's sister title, Micro Mart, wrote to Virgin to complain about the company's plans to deploy Phorm's Webwise system.
Mr Bayliss received a prompt written reply from Virgin's "customer concern" department, assuring him that the cable provider had severed all ties with Phorm.
"After much consideration, Virgin Media decided not signed up [sic] for Phorm because of amongst other things, the Webwise ad monitoring system," the letter reads.
"The roll-out of Phorm's Webwise technology has been dogged by controversy following news that large well known telecoms company ran two trials using the software without seeking its customers' permission in 2006 and 2007," the letter adds.
"Virgin Media would have offered an an [sic] 'Opt In' option to it's [sic] customers in relation to Phorm's Webwise but decided not to sign up in any way," the letter states.
However, a spokesman for Virgin Media claims the letter has been sent out in error and that the company's relationship with Phorm is unchanged. "There has been no change in our position," the spokesman told PC Pro. "We haven't committed to Phorm or pulled away from it either."
Asked to explain why the company's customer services department was sending out such letters, the spokesman said: "we haven't issued any instructions [about Phorm] to customer care." Virgin said it would issue fresh guidance to its customer support staff.
Virgin Media is one of three British ISPs who have agreements in place with Phorm - the other two being BT and Carphone Warehouse - but none has yet to commit to a full rollout of Phorm's Webwise technology, which uses deep-packet inspection to target ads at users.
Peter Bayliss, a reader of PC Pro's sister title, Micro Mart, wrote to Virgin to complain about the company's plans to deploy Phorm's Webwise system.
Mr Bayliss received a prompt written reply from Virgin's "customer concern" department, assuring him that the cable provider had severed all ties with Phorm.
"After much consideration, Virgin Media decided not signed up [sic] for Phorm because of amongst other things, the Webwise ad monitoring system," the letter reads.
"The roll-out of Phorm's Webwise technology has been dogged by controversy following news that large well known telecoms company ran two trials using the software without seeking its customers' permission in 2006 and 2007," the letter adds.
"Virgin Media would have offered an an [sic] 'Opt In' option to it's [sic] customers in relation to Phorm's Webwise but decided not to sign up in any way," the letter states.
However, a spokesman for Virgin Media claims the letter has been sent out in error and that the company's relationship with Phorm is unchanged. "There has been no change in our position," the spokesman told PC Pro. "We haven't committed to Phorm or pulled away from it either."
Asked to explain why the company's customer services department was sending out such letters, the spokesman said: "we haven't issued any instructions [about Phorm] to customer care." Virgin said it would issue fresh guidance to its customer support staff.
Virgin Media is one of three British ISPs who have agreements in place with Phorm - the other two being BT and Carphone Warehouse - but none has yet to commit to a full rollout of Phorm's Webwise technology, which uses deep-packet inspection to target ads at users.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
