Vonage IPO Breakfast of Idiots

Do not get tricked by your stock broker into buyer this junk. No company should ever be allowed to IPO unless they are making money and have been doing so for at least a two year period. This IPO is a bad investment. Read the fine print.

Vonage Holdings, moved to become the first major Internet telephony player to go public by filing Wednesday to raise up to $250 million via an initial offering of stock and named a Tyco International executive as CEO. Our revenues were $18.7million in 2003, $79.7million in 2004, and $174.0 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2005," the company's prospectus says."While our revenues have grown rapidly, we have experienced increasing net losses, primarily driven by our increase in marketing expenses. From the period of inception through Sept.30, 2005, our cumulative net loss was $310 million. Our net loss for the nine months ended Sept.30, 2005, was $189.6million. During the same nine-month period, our marketing expenses were $176.3million."

So where is the proposed $250 million going to be spent? At they rate they company is going through cash the IPO will produce enough to make the founders richer and that is about all.

So what does the future hold for Vonage? Hmmmm I think the Sale of Vonage is already done & done. The Borg will come along paying some stupid amount that will cover the major investors off then Vonage will become the property of a Telco or Cable company.

Toodles.

Cingular Patents the Emoticon :( No Shit

According to ConsumerAffairs.Com,

Cingular Wireless has won a patent on the concept of using "emoticons" on mobile phones. The patent applies not only to graphic versions of the ubiquitous smiley/mad face but also to simple text versions. :)

Cingular says the aim of the patent is to enable the displaying of graphics on its subscribers' handsets, the patent would also prohibit sending simple text versions via a dedicated or programmable key.

Realize that the U.S. Patent system is totally broken. Anyone who has not lived in a cave knows that emoticons have been in general use for at least ten or fifteen years now, and that instant messaging programs have been letting users pick out emoticons and send them for quite some time now. Exactly what about this is non-obvious, or not covered by "prior art"?

It seems the new rule on patents is, find something that everyone's been using for years, make some obvious tweak to it, and file an overly-broad patent and hope that the patent examiners aren't any brighter than a herd of monkeys (and there's been little evidence recently to suggest that they are).

I think I'm going to patent the concept of loading a wheelbarrow into the back of a SUV using a ramp. With any luck, I'll get a patent on at least the wheelbarrow and the ramp!

The patent may be seen as bad news by devotees of the inane faces. On the other hand, if it restricts the spread of the moon-shaped faces, it's likely to be wildly popular in some quarters.

Don't believe it? :| Check it out. The patent number is US2006015812. I think it will be filed under sub section: Horse-Shit_:(