14 DAY TRIAL // Rambus was particularly vague in its latest announcement, avoiding to give numbers, except when it came to how much money it hopes to make after its so-called restructuring program.
Nevertheless, it doesn't even take reading between the lines to see that the patent troll is trudging and stumbling.
Those that don't know of Rambus probably don't read much about the patent system and the wars that are going on in the IT industry. If that is the case, they should count themselves blessed.
But in case they really want to know, Rambus is one of those companies that doesn't produce anything. Instead, it files patents and then lives off licensing deals and, more often, settlements resulting from infringement lawsuits.
Recent events would have had one believe that the troll is doing fine. It did, after all, squeeze some licensing agreements from MediaTek and NVIDIA.
Nevertheless, whatever cash resulted from these two events can't erase the loss of a major patent, the subsequent drop in share value and the settlement Rambus itself had to pay a while prior to that.
These, along with other happenings, have led to the decision to restructure the company. And by restructure, Rambus means “reductions in expense and associated workforce.”
“After reviewing our expenses in detail, we have concluded that the support infrastructure can be reduced to improve profitability,” said Dr. Ronald Black, Rambus chief executive officer.
“While we have refined some of our R&D investments, we are preserving all of our strategic initiatives as we believe they will drive significant growth in the future.”
Long story short, the troll will fire a bunch of people and hopes to save $30-35 million annually once everything is done (23-27 million Euro).
“We expect to take a charge for severance, on a cash basis, of approximately $6 million over the next two quarters. We are also reviewing our assets, businesses, and other contractual obligations and may take additional charges by the end of the year,” stated Satish Rishi, Rambus chief financial officer.