Sphere 3D keeps business ship afloat atop sea of red ink

+Comment Overland Storage's – oops, sorry – Sphere 3D's ability to walk on water, otherwise known as floating on red ink, continues unabated with its fourth quarter and full calendar year 2015 results.

Tape and disk data protection vendor Overland Storage was bought by Sphere 3D in December 2014. Much has been made of its Glassware virtualization technology, which has failed to set the world on fire.

Anyway, fourth quarter revenues, which we compare with year-ago Overland Storage results and not the vastly smaller Sphere 3D's, were $18.9m, 21.9 per cent down on the year-ago $24.2m, but marginally up on the prior quarter's $18.8m.

Net income was a thumping great $18.6m loss, 154.8 per cent worse than the year ago's $7.4m loss and 82.4 per cent more dire than the previous quarter's $10.2m loss.

Overland Storage/Sphere 3D quarterly revenue and net income trend. Click to embiggen

Were the full year results any better? In a word: marginally. Revenues for 2015 were $76.2m, which compares to 2014 revenues of $65.7m – so far, so good. Net 2015 income was -$47.2m, which compares to, wait for it, a loss of $22.9mn in 2014, meaning a 106.1 per cent deterioration.

In the fourth quarter:

• Disk systems revenue was $11.2m, compared to $4.9m for the fourth quarter of 2014, with disk systems defined as RDX, SnapServer family, V3 virtual desktop infrastructure, and Glassware derived products.
• Tape archive revenue was $5.4m, compared to $3.7m for the fourth quarter of 2014.
• Service revenue was $2.3m, compared to $0.9m in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Overland Storage/Sphere 3D full year revenue and net income trend

The equivalent full year numbers were:

• Disk systems revenue of $39.8m, compared to $8.5m for the full year of 2014. Disk systems is defined as RDX, SnapServer family, V3 virtual desktop infrastructure, and Glassware derived products.
• Tape archive revenue of $25.7m, compared to $3.7m for the full year of 2014.
• Service revenue of $10.7m, compared to $1.3m for the full year of 2014.

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The CEO's statement was a wonder, with Eric Kelly, seven loss-making years at the helm under his belt, saying: "We are making meaningful progress in realizing our strategy of becoming a significant and trusted provider of virtualization, containerization and hybrid cloud solutions.

"The key partnerships we have forged over the last year have provided us the framework to build and grow our business as we continue to drive adoption and to increase our sales pipeline. As we grow the roster of enterprise customers and go-to-market partners, we expect to transition to top line growth, as we simultaneously focus on operational improvements to drive shareholder value."

Sphere 3D's board must be quick-witted to keep this ship afloat and funded. It is wondrous to behold. ®