Michael,
The disparity of stock price from then and now means that some semblance of financial responsibility needs to be included in the equation. Again, you can have the best product in the industry, in this case the mobile marketing space, but there needs to be the other, and most important part of the equation, the ability to forecast profits while establishing a plan for growth. Arena put too much emphasis on the IP and that cost the company tremendously. He gambled, he lost, at least in the short term. Now had a few IP decisions gone in his and our favor – different story, but his job as CEO was to NOT gamble, and grow the company with financial insight – I blame the CFO as well, the CFO at the end of the day should be the checks and balances against the CEO and provide established, achievable goals. Many moving parts to financial strategic planning and simply, Augme dropped the ball. We now have an interim CEO that is moving back to the fundamentals, this is good… A company as young as Augme/Hipcricket can grow and control expenses, it is possible….but the company is far from out of the woods, however a great quarter can ease a lot of pain. I hope hurricane Sandy hasn’t had too much of an impact on the current Q, but again this is when senior executives earn their money, and as stakeholders we should hold them to the fire….