Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Netlist Inc. (3rd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. If anyone wants to retarget the article to a better title, that can be done outside of this AfD. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:13, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Netlist Inc.[edit]

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1st AfD was without any actual policy-founding and the last AfD in January showed no clear consensus, of which shouldn't affect us any differently, since the history speaks for itself in not having actually changed at all, signs enough to show serious improvements couldn't happen in order to show the need of deletion no longer relevant. Take the previously offered analysis:

"Netlist Inc. will sell $15 million in common stock, the Irvine-based storage equipment maker said today. It plans to use proceeds to accelerate....It plans to get funding...."

[Specific finances and numbers]....Step forward Sammy in white knight guise, with a gift of $8m cash from Samsung Electronics and a $15m investment in Netlist from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. That $23m will come in very handy indeed. Netlist and Samsung intend to sample NVDIMM product to select customers in 2016"

"Flash DIMM technology developer Netlist has signed a five-year joint development deal with global memory leader Samsung to produce non-volatile DIMMs, giving it a lifeline"
"Irvine's Netlist is trying to carve out a niche in this battleground by creating specialized memory packages for the likes of Dell and IBM and their high-end corporate computers....Now here are their profits"
"Netlist Inc. said it has raised about $15.4 million from a common stock offering of 4 million shares priced at $3.85 each....Here are the financials and what they make...."
"Netlist, a publicly traded company based in Irvine, California that was founded in 2000 and that you have probably never heard of, will probably make a big splash at the SC09 supercomputing trade show next week....Here is what the company's business involves....Here are the company's services and what it offers"

The Orange County Register is simply that, a localized and local-focused business column for everyday business activities, it's not independent since it's simply a local business journal, journals of which are blatantly known for republishing anything for companies. Any one of us here can easily claim sources exist, but the sources clearly existing there all have the company's conveniently placed stamp and that enough is to show how skillfully crafted they are at it. Next, one of the "Keep" voters, a now-banned user with past connections to paid editing, is enough to jeopardize the last AfD's integrity. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ _Talk 19:30, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 19:35, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 19:35, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in reliable sources.
Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Publicly traded corporations says (my bolding):
There has been considerable discussion over time whether publicly traded corporations, or at least publicly traded corporations listed on major stock exchanges such as the NYSE and other comparable international stock exchanges, are inherently notable. Consensus has been that notability is not automatic in this (or any other) case. However, sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage and analyst reports. Accordingly, article authors should make sure to seek out such coverage and add references to such articles to properly establish notability.
Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to search (or request that others search) prior to nominating for deletion, given the very high (but not certain) likelihood that a publicly traded company is actually notable according to the primary criterion.
1. Morgan, Timothy Prickett. "Netlist goes virtual and dense with server memory". The Register. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Netlist, a publicly traded company based in Irvine, California that was founded in 2000 and that you have probably never heard of, will probably make a big splash at the SC09 supercomputing trade show next week. Netlist, which makes memory modules on an OEM basis for various companies, said Wednesday that in December it will roll out a virtualized, dense memory DDR3 module that will be able to trick servers into having more main memory than they are supposed to.
  ...
  Netlist got its start in 2000 doing custom printed circuit board design, and a "netlist," according to Paul Duran, director of business development at the company, is akin to a bill of materials for all of the connectivity on a PCB. A few years back, when dense rack and blade servers started going volume, Netlist became a specialist in making very low profile memory on an OEM basis for blade server makers. (The company does not disclose who its customers are, but they're probably the usual suspects.) The company also developed a memory packaging technology called Planar-X, which allows for two PCBs loaded with memory chips to be packaged together relatively inexpensively to share a single memory slot. This technique is cheaper and more reliable, according to Duran, than some of the dual-die packaging techniques memory module makers use to make dense memory cards out of low density and cheaper memory chips.
2. Morgan, Timothy Prickett (2010-03-23). "Netlist's HyperCloud memory gets Wall Street's blessing". The Register. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Right about now, server memory module maker Netlist is probably wishing that it hadn't already gone public. But if the enthusiasm in a new public offering by investors on Wall Street last Friday is any indication, Netlist may be onto something with its new HyperCloud DDR3 super-dense main memory for servers.
  ...
  Netlist is not particularly large or profitable at this point in its history, but it has what sounds like a good idea, and so the company hired Needham & Company to put together a public offering of three million of its shares to raise some cash to put HyperCloud memory into production and market it.
  ...
  Netlist has a market capitalization of $79.2m at time of writing. The real wonder is not why Netlist - which has a knack for choppy revenues and losses, as many startups do - was able to get money out of Wall Street. It is why one of the big server makers - Intel, or Advanced Micro Devices, all of which have a huge stake in server virtualization and will have to make up some revenue declines and margins if server virtualization eventually causes footprints to contract - hasn't snapped up Netlist already.
3. "Netlist raises $15.4M in common stock offering". Associated Press. 2010-03-19. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Netlist Inc. said it has raised about $15.4 million from a common stock offering of 4 million shares priced at $3.85 each.
  After commissions and other expenses, the offering will leave Netlist with $14.12 million in proceeds. The company will use that money for operations, including marketing, research and development, working capital and other general corporate purposes.
  ...
  Netlist makes memory subsystems for servers and high-performance computers and communications equipment.
4. Lansner, Jonathan (2006-09-10). "Three IPOs from O.C. seek niches". Orange County Register. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Irvine's Netlist is trying to carve out a niche in this battleground by creating specialized memory packages for the likes of Dell and IBM and their high-end corporate computers.
  Since opening in 2000, Netlist has lost a total of $20 million cracking into the computing world after initially focusing on the telecommunications industry. Memory's high end is a crowded place, too. Netlist competes with, among others, O.C. shops SimpleTech and Viking.
  Netlist's gambit may be paying off, as the company is at least profitable in its most recent six-month period. And sales are up 80 percent.
5. Stewart, Colin (2007-06-01). "Netlist of Irvine faces stockholder lawsuitsas shares drop". Orange County Register. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Shareholders who bought Netlist's first public shares for $7 each in December are taking the company to court as the shares drop to nearly $3.
  The suits accuse the Irvine-based maker of computer memory equipment and its officers of violating federal securities laws by not revealing its vulnerability to a declining computer-memory market at the time of its initial public offering.
  ...
  In its IPO, 146-employee Netlist raised $39.5 million, net after $4.2 million in underwriting expenses, by selling 6.25 million shares at $7 each. The stock closed Thursday at $3.17.
6. Casacchia, Chris (2016-09-07). "Netlist in $15M Offering". Orange County Business Journal. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Netlist Inc. will sell $15 million in common stock, the Irvine-based storage equipment maker said today.a It plans to use proceeds to accelerate its patent monetization strategy, commercialize its HybriDIMM product line, and for general corporate purposes.
  ...
  The Business Journal in February reported that Netlist would receive $23 million from South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. and have access to thousands of patents from the world’s largest electronics company as part of a joint venture to co-develop a product combining Netlist’s HyperVault offering with Samsung’s DRAM and NAND memory technology.
7. Mellor, Chris (2015-11-19). "Samsung tosses lifeline to Netlist NVDIMMs". The Register. Archived from the original on 2016-12-27. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
  The article notes:
  
  Flash DIMM technology developer Netlist has signed a five-year joint development deal with global memory leader Samsung to produce non-volatile DIMMs, giving it a lifeline from years of litigation hell against Diablo Technologies over memory channel storage IP.
  The basic concept is to put flash chips on DDR3 and 4 memory DIMMS, thus giving the flash memory channel access, which has lower latency than PCIe flash cards. Netlist and Diablo Technologies worked together on this and then separated, Diablo licensing the resulting Memory Channel Storage to SMART Storage.
  ...
  Business results for Netlist have been poor. Revenues for its third 2015 quarter were a slim $1.6m, compared to $4.8m a year go. There was a $5.4m net loss; it was $4.1m a year ago. Ho hum, you think, this company is really struggling.
  Step forward Sammy in white knight guise, with a gift of $8m cash from Samsung Electronics and a $15m investment in Netlist from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. That $23m will come in very handy indeed. Netlist and Samsung intend to sample NVDIMM product to select customers in 2016.
8. Netlist is a publicly traded corporation. According to Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Publicly traded corporations: "sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage and analyst reports."
  https://www.zacks.com/stock/research/NLST/brokerage-reports ^WebCite lists several analyst reports about Netlist.
9. Morningstar, Inc. also has an analyst report under a paywall at http://www.morningstar.com/stocks/XNAS/NLST/quote.html.
There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Netlist to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Cunard (talk) 02:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Netlist Inc. (2nd nomination) participants: DGG (talk · contribs), SwisterTwister (talk · contribs), W Nowicki (talk · contribs), Alansohn (talk · contribs), Greenrd (talk · contribs), Timtempleton (talk · contribs), and K.e.coffman (talk · contribs). Cunard (talk) 02:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - In addition to Cunard's sources, there are a couple of patent infringement lawsuits that got the company coverage as well, one still going on. (I apologize that in the interest of time I'm not as elegant as Cunard with filling out the refs and excerpts - you'll have to settle for bare links). Versus Inphi [[1]] [[2]], and versus SK Hynix, the second-largest memory chip maker in the world and one that this article says Netlist has a good chance of winning. [[3]] Same argument I made last time - it's not WP:CRYSTAL because the trial has already gotten good media coverage. The ruling comes on Oct. 10th of this year. Also, I noticed you stated that the last vote was suspect and should be revisited because an editor was banned for COI. I think you're talking about 1WIki8, who is actually banned for apparently losing his cool and strangely demanding a self-ban after this previous (2nd) AfD where he complained of being hounded by another editor, who may very well appear again shortly to do the same to me, Cunard and any other keep votes. This was the thread where he was banned:[[4]] Are we talking about the same editor? It would be a shame for the voting process if editors came here and read your nomination and assumed that anyone's defense of this article was for COI reasons, and that they were banned for it. Also, it's easy to look at Cunard's and my easily Googled coverage and ask whatever happened to WP:BEFORE, but I'm also concerned that you may be mixing up the largest paper in Orange County, California (The Orange County Register) with the county's largest business journal, the Orange County Business Journal. The Register is not just simply a local business journal. Here's a link to their site: [[5]]. Both publications have very high editorial standards and have been used as sources quite often on Wikipedia for California businesses. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 05:44, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- the above are roughly the same sources as presented at AfD #2 and are still unconvincing for notability. The only thing the company has going for it is being WP:LISTED but at $8M of revenue it's so insignificant as to not register on the tech radar. The sources presented is very unconvincing, with The Register being known for pretty much publishing anything a tech company tells it, and The Orange County Register being routine local coverage. The article's content belongs on the company web site, not in the encyclopedia. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:13, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think you meant to say the OC Business Journal will publish anything. I read it often and have used it for several articles. Can you provide some substantiating evidence to support the claim that they are an not a reliable source? TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 02:44, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I meant https://www.theregister.co.uk/. This has been my experience with it -- a lot of redressed press releases, interviews with tech companies, etc. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:53, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry - my mistake. I don't use the Register that much. Does seem to have a different tone than the OCBJ. I almost wonder whether a scoring system showing reliability could work. Right now there are two options - reliable or blacklisted. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 05:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

keep somewhat to my surprise, I'm saying keep -- on the basis of Cunard's refs 1 & 2 above, which offer a real analysis of the company's technical importance.(it's easier to make this argument in this subject area, because many of us have some understanding of what is currently and what was previously important); yes this amounts to a subject bias for computer technology, butWP has had that bias since day 1, and it was one of the things that initially made us important--even when our coverage of general topics was pathetic, in this field we were authoritative. But Cunard, you would make a stronger case if you didn't try to use refs like Mornigstore for notability, & recognized while public companies may always have reliable financial data tat permits WP:V, it doesn't mean they have anything more substantial. If you defend only the more defensible,you & I & everyone will be able to reach consensus more frequently. DGG ( talk ) 03:14, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep – Squeaks by WP:CORPDEPTH. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:45, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and rename as a publicly traded company on a major stock exchange that received substantial coverage from the Associated Press, it meets our inclusion criteria. Most of the sourcing above does not actually establish notability, but some of it does, and the argument that this company was listed on the NASDAQ in the mid-2000s is a strong one for notability even by the higher standards for corporate notability that I have advocated for in project space contributions. I echo DGG's !vote here, and I would also suggest moving this page to get rid of the Inc. Such corporate abbreviations almost always serve no purpose in Wikipedia articles. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:43, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.