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Troubled OCZ now has feds up ass with microscope

Harsh cawing of lawyers fills the air

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Flash storage springbok OCZ, which suddenly lurched into the intensive care ward and ditched its founding CEO, now has less of a spring in its step; it's received news of an SEC probe into the company.

This is to do with OCZ's inability to file a required business report for its latest quarter - some background here - due to some customer incentive programmes which are hard to unravel. The SEC letter to OCZ mentioned other, unrevealed, matters as well.

New CEO Ralph Schmitt said:

"Since we delayed the filing of our second quarter 10-Q, we had proactively contacted the Commission and have been expecting them to conduct an investigation. We intend to cooperate fully regarding this non-public, fact-finding inquiry and are also continuing with our own internal investigation as previously announced."

Trading in OCZ shares was briefly suspended when the news came out.

Stifel Nicolaus' Aaron Rakers notes:

The company has recently stated that it would likely need additional financing. ... it is working on raising cash via inventory liquidation ... OCZ has announced a 28 per cent global workforce reduction, excluding production personnel, which has been reduced by 32 per cent including outside contractors. The company reduced its production from three shifts for six days a week to two shifts per day for five days a week. ... notification from Nasdaq provides the company until mid-December to be up to date on its financial filings.

With nearly two dozen ambulance chasing lawyers drumming up investor support for class action lawsuits against the company over share price falls when the CEO was ditched - trying to blame some improper actions by management - Schmitt has his work cut out to get OCZ back on an even keel and back to trading normally. ®

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I am no reader of this article (just passing through...)

But can I nominate this for Headline of the Year?

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Re: I am no reader of this article (just passing through...)

This should not even be nominated for Headline of the Article - it is poor for several reasons:

* "feds" should have been "Feds", since there is presumably no connection with "fed up" nor with " 'fess up"

* "ass" is American usage, our AngloSaxon word is better and less easily confused with equus asinus

* a microscope would be an entirely inappropriate instrument for anal insertion - a colonoscope, sigmoidoscope or even endoscope would be of more use (trust me)

I'm happy with "Troubled OCZ", though.

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I am no an accoiuntant, but it ALWAYS astounds me how a company can file late...

In this day of BIM, WIP, HR, Admin, and Acccounting dashboards, and all sorts of databases that OUGHT make it illegal to be dicking around in multi-person, multi-group, multi-department/multi-division spreadsheets that are often a bitch and 2/3 to synch up on a weekly basis not to mention a quarterly basis, the SEC and IRS should come down HARD AS HELL on companies that miss their Call.

How hard is it to have a morning and evening balance check, with master numbers worked against the daily check-writing database numbers? How hard is it to make database tables that have the requisite on/off switches for forecast vs received receivables and forecast/vs paid payables? So easy, to me. As one who occasionally spends 2 days to almost a week randomly making a business plan of accounting and HR ideas for a notional product, I feel that if I had rudimentary programming skills, and a grade-A accountant and bookkeeper at my side, I could do more with Lotus Approach than the likes of Deltek and others -- at least for companies smaller than 100 to 200 employees. Some companies do not or FLLLLLAT OUT refuse to understand or embrace the concept of bounds-checking for reasonableness. Upper/lower limits for income and expenses and forecasts and the like would prevent companies from suffering unholy hell of a misplaced comma or an extra decimal in the wrong direction. Manually shifting entries from one subsid to the parent office is a waste of time and risks introducing errors that compound vagaries, frustrate well-meaning employees, and often only serve to satisfy management that has no appreciation for databases. If 90% of things are the same per quarter, and turnover is low, then a database capturing numbers, with enforced accurate capture of expenses, expense reports, purchases, write-offs, payrolls, actual vs projected taxes, and more, could literally make it possible for many companies to self-audied at the push of a button. The worst that might then go wrong for some would be pilferage, untested defective inventory, or outright bad purchasing habits, or willful failure to set aside upcoming, due taxes, or willfully paying payroll late.

Gods, some companies are sooooo lame or just asking for a financial ass-probing/audit or outright kicking. Spreadsheets for analyzing, databases for capture and actionables!

Now, I will probablly go and read that report to see whether THEIR problems stemmed from shitty management or just willful old habits dying hard.

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