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The Courts Government The Almighty Buck News

X10 Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection 322

Posted by simoniker from the but-i-love-their-ads-so dept.
telstar writes "As a followup to the recent Slashdot story about X10 losing a $4.3 million patent infringement suit over pop-unders, X10, the wireless camera company that 'only last year billed itself as the world's largest online advertiser', have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This allows them to continue to operate, but they'll be shielded from creditors while they reorganize their finances - so rest easy, X10 popups are here to stay."
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X10 Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection More

X10 Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

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  • Popups (Score:5, Funny)

    by KillerHamster ( 645942 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:14AM (#7289014) Homepage
    X10 popups have made the Web what it is today. Losing them would be like losing a part of one's body. I'm glad to hear they will still be with us.

    Long live X10!

  • Shocked! Just shocked! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rjamestaylor ( 117847 ) <rjamestaylor@gmail.com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:14AM (#7289017) Journal
    1) Spend bazillions on new web marketing campaign
    2) Alienate web users with pop-unders and fake pr0n
    3) ???
    4) Bankrupcy!
    • The reason why they were sued was because they weren't paying their advertising bill. Slashdot has been spreading this crap since yesterday.

    • Re:Shocked! Just shocked! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:48AM (#7289146) Homepage Journal
      Well it sounds like they didn't actually spend lots of money on the web advertising campaign - the lawsuit that triggered this bankruptcy was by a pop-under company suing x10 for unpaid bills (among other nonsense). In a strange way it's a karmic balance for x10 to go bankrupt depriving some pop-up "innovators" from getting their bounty.

      Having said that, x10 was amazingly successful at their campaign - from a collection of fringe items by a company that no-one knew, to millions in sales and a company whose name we all know well. I also think it's a bit foolish to demonize x10- x10 didn't put ads on the sites you visit--The site put ads there (well, apart from gator but that was a prior story). If you don't like the pop-under ads at a site, blame the site itself not the people paying the bills.
  • Is there any difference between X10 the advertiser and X10 the company that makes the rf receivers used by the ATI Remote Wonders?

    • Re:One company or Two (Score:5, Informative)

      by ottawanker ( 597020 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:21AM (#7289047) Homepage
      There is no difference between the company X10 that cells the wireless remotes and X10 the company that advertises its wireless cameras all over the place.

      Their full name is X10 Wireless Technology. They are also the same company that makes all the home automation software (that was sold for a while by Radioshack).. It's pretty neat stuff. You can hook it up to your computer and control all your lights, etc.. Check it out [x10.com]. You don't need to use their software or interface either, there are plans around, and even Linux software.

  • Sad for the brothers (Score:5, Informative)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:18AM (#7289032) Journal
    Read a report on this an hour ago. It seems that X10 has assets of $1-10M, and debts of $10-50M. The three brothers that won the settlement the other day are by far the biggest creditor, so I assume that they get first crack at any assets when X10 goes under. (My prediction there)

    So they'll probably get everything that X10 has, and still be short on their settlement. Everyone else will get stiffed, punitive damages against X10 won't be assigned since there's nothing to assign them to, and because it was done under the umbrella of a corporation, the CEO and other execs will walk away with their salaries for the last several years, ready to enter another sleazy line of work.

    The best thing about a corporation is that it protects individuals, encouraging risk-taking competitive capitalism. The worst thing about a corporation is that ir protects individuals, encouraging irresponsible and borderline-criminal behaviour.

    • Re:Sad for the brothers (Score:5, Interesting)

      by stomv ( 80392 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:37AM (#7289106) Homepage
      Generally, the large creditors share the assets at approximately the percentage that they're owed.

      So, I'd expect those brothers -- who are owed $4.5 mil or so to get $.1M - $4.5M ($.1M if $1M assets, $50M debt; $4.5M if $10M assets, $10M debts). Of course, if the company had exactly $10M of debts and $10M of assets, the CEO would kick in a penny and avoid bankruptcy... ;)

      Of course, IANAA, IANAL, IANACFO.

      • Re:Sad for the brothers (Score:3, Informative)

        by GigsVT ( 208848 )
        Except that this isn't a chapter 7 liquidation, it's chapter 11.

        They'll try to stay in business, and a judge will decide how they should pay back their creditors.
      • Of course, if the company had exactly $10M of debts and $10M of assets, the CEO would kick in a penny and avoid bankruptcy... ;)

        Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can declare bankruptcy just because debts > assets. Many people and companies have more debts than assets. I believe the deciding factor is if there is no reasonable way you'll be able to pay your debts. If you have assets of $10M and debts of $10M and income of $5M I doubt you'd be able to get a court to allow you to file for

    • Re:Sad for the brothers (Score:4, Informative)

      by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:39AM (#7289117)
      That is of course assuming they are able to obtain bankruptcy protection:

      "X10 filed what the bankruptcy court termed a "deficient" filing, meaning that it lacked a statement of its financial affairs. The court set a 15-day deadline for the completion of the filing, or X10 risks a dismissal."
    • The three brothers that won the settlement the other day are by far the biggest creditor, so I assume that they get first crack at any assets when X10 goes under.

      That's a lot of little cameras to play with.
      Sorority houses had better watch out for any suspicious plumbers coming to "fix the shower".
    • Not that I like to support people who make the internet annoying, but I actually wanted to buy one of those little cameras! I'm completely serious; everyone I talked to that knew someone that had one said they work exactly as advertised and they work great.

      ~Wx
    • It seems that X10 has assets of $1-10M, and debts of $10-50M

      And now I have a guess as to why they are in such bad shape. Perhaps I'm just naive of how the business world operates, but it seems to me that if you can only estimate your worth within an order of magnitude, and your debts within half an order of magnitude, you really must not have a clue what's going on in your company.

      If I told a financial planner I wasn't sure if my bank account balance was $5000 or $50000, and I can't remember if I owe $10
      • I'm sure X10 knows their assets and debts to the penny. It's just the poster who isn't sure... his point was that their debts are far larger than their assets, by an order of magnitude or more.

        Also, at the risk of sounding pedantic: Since "order of magnitude" is a logarithmic scale, a half of an order of magnitide would be a factor of 3.16..., not 5.

        The second range is actually over 2/3 an order of magnitude.
    • The three brothers that won the settlement the other day are by far the biggest creditor, so I assume that they get first crack at any assets when X10 goes under

      Well, it's done on a percentage basis according to the amount owed and the available assets unless there are tax liabilities involved, in which case the IRS gets first crack to recover the full value of the taxes owed, and everyone else gets to divvy up whatever is left, if anything. IANAL, but I have been a creditor in bankruptcy proceedings, an

    • The best thing about a corporation is that it protects individuals, encouraging risk-taking competitive capitalism. The worst thing about a corporation is that ir protects individuals, encouraging irresponsible and borderline-criminal behaviour.

      Well said.

      Any decade now, when I become wealthy enought to invest money in other companies, you can be sure I'll give points to management that asks for themselves reasonable salaries and company stock options that can't be exercised for plenty of years.

      People r

    • It seems that X10 has assets of $1-10M, and debts of $10-50M.

      How much of that debt belongs to their bandwidth provider?

      "Nevermind, we'll make it up on volume!"

      Chip H.

  • Just A Thought Here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bloodmoon1 ( 604793 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `noirepyh.eb'> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:19AM (#7289040) Homepage Journal
    'only last year billed itself as the world's largest online advertiser'

    I saw this and thought back to the mid/late '90s. Remember all of those big internet companies? The ones who survived off advertisements online? No? Me neither. I don't think I'd promote the fact my company is the world's biggest advertiser online. We've been down that road that's littered with the corpses of about a thousand defunct new e-conomy companies who either; A) Didn't turn a profit after spending huge amounts of money advertising online (as is the case here), or B) Who's sites were abandoned by said failed business plans and then folded with no positive cash flow coming in.

    Just a thought.
    • Virtually, every single commercial website which is not collecting money from people, is surviving/or supported heavily through Ads.

      So the moral is not that advertisements dont work, just that the bad ones dont.
      • Agreed, but I'm talking about the big internet companies whose entire business plan was basically to generate as many hits as their hardware would allow, then sale ads based on those numbers. The ones who would then do shit like buy $90,000 sports cars and have them painted with their "edgy" color schemes and give 3 away a day for a month and other dumb crap. (Maybe not a true example, but not far from base). A lot of sites got away with doing the ads only thing for a while, but unless they either stayed ve
    • I remember NextCard Internet Visa, having worked for them.
    • The ones who survived off advertisements online? No? Me neither.

      Gee, I guess you've never heard of Penny-Arcade [penny-arcade.com]. Just a few weeks ago they started REFUSING money from their viewers, since they are getting by with online advertising.

      well, I guess there are anomalies to every rule.

  • Shielded from creditors... but not judgements? (Score:5, Informative)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:23AM (#7289055) Homepage
    It's been a long time, but I seem to recall that although declaring bankruptcy can shield you from normal creditors, it cannot shield you from legal judgements against you. Meaning that the kids who won the 4 million dollar lawsuit should still be getting their 4 million dollars.

    And good.
    • Good? The "kids" were pop-under advertisement "innovators" - how in the world could they even remotely be considered the good guys in all of this? Hint: They can't.

      How ridiculous to see x10 hung to out to dry when what they did required the explicit permission of every site that they tacked their ads onto (and those ads often kept those sites in business).
      • Not really an innnovation either.

        In sweden I was intruduced to this concept about 5 years ago. A company wanted a "kalle bakom" short for "carl behind". I was suppose to open their whole website behind the real site as an advertisement. Needles to say. The customers where pissed. If that wasn't pop under tech I don't know what is.

        Thank god I live in sweden or they might sue me for a patent they have yet to file, or invented..

        The US style in computer tech seems to be that an innovation without a patent ca

    • Re:Shielded from creditors... but not judgements? (Score:4, Informative)

      by milo_Gwalthny ( 203233 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:50AM (#7289828)
      No, liabilities created by legal judgements are unsecured (the loss of the lawsuit may have been what prompted the company to decide on Ch.11 in the first place.) These become part of the pool of unsecured liabiities and the amount allocated to that pool is shared pro-rata by all unsecured creditors.

      Unless, of course, the creditor is the IRS. Never forget that the IRS always gets paid.

      There's a good chance that X10 has secured creditors and that the Yorba Linda popunder brothers end up with next to nothing. (Not having seen X10's financial statements, I can't say for sure, but a business like this may have factored its receivables or have leased equipment making much of its asset base secured.)

  • Of all the things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by t4b00 ( 715501 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:23AM (#7289057)
    that are rapidly becoming illegal or at the least highly regulated on the interent. Why is it legal to pop up unwanted windows under OR over the browser without the Expressed Written Concent of the END USER.
    I suppose they would argue that by viewing the site said concent is implied, however its hard to know what you are signing up for when you click a link and WHAM you get attacked by unwanted windows containing advertisments, often times, inappropriate material to say the least. would be nice to see a question on the home page of these popup serving pages like: "Would you like to see our ads?"

    Unrealistic, yes. but so are some of the laws being proposed that TAKE away from the user experience, and they seem to be passing through as laws easy enough.

    Just Say no to pop-ups/pop-unders
    • Or better yet, why is it -possible- to pop up a window over or under the users browser without the users permission?

      (Yes, I know there are a lot of browsers that now allow you to block popups - and that you can inside of IE using the google toolbar... but it seems rather poor design to have allowed this without user permission in the /first place/.)

  • Patents promote innovation! (Score:4, Informative)

    by jamie(really) ( 678877 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:24AM (#7289060)
    Yah patents! I love my X10 home automation stuff. Its useful. But equally, I think that a new and innovative idea about opening one window *underneath* another one is worth $4.3 million. Those silly X10 people for manufacturing useful physical objects and creating manufacturing jobs should pay more attention to the much more valuable world of clever, original ideas.
    • X10 the home automation system, and X10 the company that hawks cameras in popunder advertisements, are two different things.

      In this case, X10 Home Automation is a communication protocol/standard that allows for remote control of stuff...and the X10 company, ripped the name off.

  • Poetic justice...? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Empiric ( 675968 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:25AM (#7289063)
    So, someone caught X10 with their pants down, so to speak?

  • live by the sword die by the sword (Score:3, Informative)

    by MrLint ( 519792 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:25AM (#7289065) Journal
    Talk about being conflicted, I have used x10 stuff and i liked it and always thought it was cool. A fried told me about them, not some annoying online advertising. The make a useful product that works. Any number of conventional advertising scheme should have gotten them bunches of customers, but they had to go the annoying popup windows and such. Its sad really in its own way.
    • Even before the pop-unders x10 had an overly enthusiastic sales group: Everything is always the final few days of some Earth shattering never to be repeated sale....oh demand is so high we've extended it for another week... Even looking at their site right now I see the classic "Hurry - Ends Tomorrow!". Yeah, okay...

  • More to this story (Score:5, Informative)

    by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:31AM (#7289087) Homepage
    X10 made offers they never backed up - anyone remember this slashdot story [slashdot.org]? I'm still waiting for mine and that was 1999.

    X10 had a niche product - home automation products. Not everyone is willing to replace plugs and switches in their home with x10 enabled smart ones.

    X10 tried to appeal to rather base instinct: buy our video gear and you can make movies of naked or at least semi naked 19 year old models. The problem is most people don't have anyone that resembles a model living in their home. If anything the footage most people would secure is suitable only for America's funniest home videos...

    • Re:More to this story (Score:2, Informative)

      by ergo98 ( 9391 )
      I'm still waiting for mine and that was 1999.

      I got mine about two weeks after ordering (as did a coworker), and their campaign worked brilliantly as shortly thereafter I purchased several more modules, and an ActiveHome kit.

      X10 tried to appeal to rather base instinct: buy our video gear and you can make movies of naked or at least semi naked 19 year old models

      Actually it appears to a real base instinct, which is sex. i.e. you see the ad and you notice it because it has an attractive young woman on it

    • Re:More to this story (Score:3, Informative)

      by wolf- ( 54587 )
      X10 made offers they never backed up - anyone remember this slashdot story? I'm still waiting for mine and that was 1999


      Mine came rather quickly. Because of that promotion, have bought a number of wireless cameras to cover the backyard.

    • X10 had a niche product - home automation products. Not everyone is willing to replace plugs and switches in their home with x10 enabled smart ones.

      And if you are, you're probably getting something of slightly better quality than that you can get from the X10 company itself -- there's several manufacturers making better-quality modules. I use Smarthome [smarthome.com]'s *linc products very happily, although I've heard others complain about their reliablility. I also use a lot of Leviton [leviton.com] stuff, which is very solid.

      Oh, an

  • X10 Popups are here to stay? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by easyfrag ( 210329 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:33AM (#7289091)
    Now really, is there anyone who reads Slashdot that is still dealing with popups? Between builtin popup blockers in the Mozilla family, Safari, and Opera and the Google Toolbar in IE why would any self-respecting geek ever have to see an X10 ad?
  • Has anyone actually seen an X10 ad recently? Since buying a Mac and now using Safari as my browser, I don't get any pop-ups anymore, X10 or otherwise, but I haven't seen any "regular" banner ads for them either, and I'm not blocking those.

    Are they actually still advertising?
  • Well, I can't say I'll miss X10, if they don't recover from this. I was disgusted with their ubiqitous popunders, but more so the nature of them and their damn online ads. I don't want a popunder or add on a page that looks like I might be visiting a porno site while I'm at work! (Hell, I've seen porn sites that had women with more clothes covering them than some of the women in some of X10's ads.)

    But on the other hand, now Advertisement Banners is free to license their popunder code to everyone out th

  • success Vs. X10 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alpha713 ( 701963 ) <nirusb@gHORSEmail.com minus herbivore> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:39AM (#7289116)
    My own outlook on the whole matter is that any company that uses pop-ups as a form of advertising deserves whatever it gets. Not so much because of the fact that pop-up are wrong, but they are unpopular, and any marketing exec that hasn't worked out that getting people to hate you isn't a good way to sell products needs to go and do a refresher. The best advertising is word of mouth, if your friends recommend it then you are more likely to go there. Which is exactly how I found slashdot, the other important aspect is that slashdot has the community and the content to make people want to stay around. Essentially they are not just in it to weasel people out of their money.

  • bummer (Score:3, Funny)

    by andih8u ( 639841 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:55AM (#7289168)
    X10 going backrupt? That's just as depressing as the eventual announcement that Darl McBride has looted the SCO accounts and fled to the Carribean.

  • Oh dear. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:03AM (#7289204) Homepage Journal
    This is a tragedy. Maybe I'll write a dirge and then irritate the crap out of everyone by injecting it into pop-up ads.


    Seriously, X10 had a decent concept - build budget networks, budget devices, and sell to people who really don't need much more than that.


    Their biggest problem was their promotion. By sexing their ads up, they really didn't do much for themselves. By then having said ads as extra windows - hey, that got irritating, really really fast.


    This demonstrates how NOT to sell a product. You want to sell something, you make it attractive to the consumer, not so repulsive that they want to spit boiling acid at the computer screen. (Unless you're a merchant of either boiling acid, or computer screens.)


    X10 have only themselves to blame for this. Very few companies, once in Ch11 ever really get out. For most, it's just a delayed death of the company. Usually because they don't actually change anything. Sure, they dump workforce, but that just makes the company top-heavy. It's not the workforce that's the problem, it's the income. There ain't any. The solution is to change what you're doing, to make some. Duh.


    Sadly, this often doesn't happen, and I doubt it will in the case of X10. Anyone that persists in ads that don't work, but just infuriate, has demonstrated an inability to change a failing strategy.

    • Re:Oh dear. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by djeaux ( 620938 )

      Anyone that persists in ads that don't work, but just infuriate, has demonstrated an inability to change a failing strategy.

      So far infuriating consumers hasn't slowed down the outfits that advertise using unsolicited email.

      I think companies that persist in using irritating advertising simply have ignorant marketing staffs that look at the wrong metrics when calculating ROI for the advertising dollars. X10's folks no doubt were looking at stuff such as the number of "impressions" or sales per advertisi

  • Chapter 11 == X11 (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lispy ( 136512 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:10AM (#7289221) Homepage
    So that would make them X11 then?
    Well, confusing. Whats more, What are these popups you speak of? Use a decent browser and you wont have them...not at all.

  • In all my life, I have never been happier to read a headline than right now. X10 filed for bankruptcy directly because of pop-up ads.

    Today is a great day

  • X10 is a protocol (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eye of the Frog ( 152749 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:15AM (#7289250)
    People tend to forget that X10 is a communications protocol designed to send signals over the 60Hz wave in your house's wiring. The X10 Home Solutions Company does not have exculsive rights over the X10 protocol. It's like naming a company TCP/IP. If you'd like to buy home automation devices and not support this company, a simple google search [google.com] will bring up many companies. I've used SmartHome's [smarthome.com] products before and have been happy with them. Hell, even IBM got into the game [smarthome.com] for a while until that part of the business spun off into Home Director Inc. [homedirector.com]
    • I'd be wary as the ones I've seen at Radio Shack aren't X10 brand but they look like relabels of X10's product line. I thought the name was SmartHome, I am not sure.

      If you can find compatible units from other suppliers, more power to you. The build quality of the X10 branded products was sorely lacking. I've had my light turn on for no apparent reason and sometimes the RS232 sender part doesn't work right. On the system that I ran the X10 sender, the software for it needed to be restarted every day.

      I

  • Well duh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zygote-IC- ( 512412 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:29AM (#7289316) Homepage
    Of course they are broke! I imagine the food and housing bill alone skyrocketed after all those hot chicks kept breaking into their living rooms, bedrooms and porches.
    Luckily I have a camera to keep them away...at least I think it's the camera that does it..

  • This isn't about patents (Score:5, Informative)

    by meridien ( 718383 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:30AM (#7289324) Homepage
    The lawsuit files by the brothers against X10 had nothing to do with patents. X10 hired them to write the behind-the-scenes code to create their annoying pop-under ads and then chose not to pay them for their work. It appears they had a contract with X10 which is the main reason they won the judgement - AS THEY SHOULD HAVE! Would you like it if your employer chose not to pay you because they just didn't want to? How would you respond to that?
  • Shouldn't the icon be 'It's funny, laugh'?

  • Popups aside... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GeorgeH ( 5469 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:36AM (#7289359) Homepage Journal
    This still kind of sucks. Yeah, yeah, we hated their ads, but anyone on this site should have figured out by now that almost all browsers offer pop-up blocking (IE being the sole exception that I can think of).

    But what about the rest of the story? I'm going out to Radio Shack tonight to buy a bunch of X10 stuff, because it actually works. It's getting dark out in the mornings so I'm going to use their alarm clock and a plug module to turn my light on in the morning. I'll probably stock up on a couple things for future expansion. Currently I have two lamps in my living room and a coffee machine on a remote control thanks to the Slashdot X10 deal [slashdot.org].

    The other problem is that someone patented pop-under ads. This seems like yet-another-bad-software-patent, but I guess Slashdotters pick and choose which bad software patents to get upset about. If this affected Microsoft it would be a valid software patent, but if it affected Linux it would be an abomination. The ends don't justify the means and you can't root for software patents when they happen to bankrupt someone you don't like.
  • So if X10 closes it doors where can I get X10 like stuff? Is there someone else out there that offer cheap cameras like X10?

  • Article Text Incorrect (Score:5, Informative)

    by barryfandango ( 627554 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:04AM (#7289513)

    As a followup to the recent Slashdot story about X10 losing a $4.3 million patent infringement suit over pop-unders"...

    It wasn't a patent infringement suit. The brothers were suing for money owed for services rendered. The popunder technology isn't even patented, though according to the article it is proprietary.

    This distinction was made many times over when the last article was posted, so I was surprised to see this misconception make it into the text of the next article...

  • Horrible Timing! (Score:4, Funny)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:37AM (#7289738)
    Just when I was starting to get some good footage on the nanny-cam!

  • New Special (Score:3, Funny)

    by boatboy ( 549643 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:53AM (#7289853) Homepage
    NEW! Bankruptcy special! Buy 1 X10 Super-Delux Cameramatic 5000 and get your own pop-under Javascript Code FREE!

  • I liked X10 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:58AM (#7289895) Homepage Journal
    It will be a shame to see this company go. Seriously. So they used pop-up and pop-under advertising -- so what? Lots of companies do. At the end of the day, they still sold home automation gear at great prices. I hooked up my entire home using their products, didn't spend a lot, and it's wonderful to use. With the X10 company gone, I will have to turn to Lutron, Smarthome, or other more expensive makers of X10 gear.

    Or we could all just upgrade from X10 to X11. I hear the upgrade lets you run graphical applications remotely. :)
    • That's what always bugged me. X-10 made some pretty dang good products. But after a wile, I got so annoyed with their pop-up/under ads, I stoped buying from them. I even sent them a letter asking "Why do you go out of your way to annoy customers?"

      There was no reply.

      I always figured they would go under because their customer base would eventually get fed up with their gosh awful advertisment techniques. Who'd a thunk it would be like this. An odd, uneasy karmic justice.

      Oh well, hopefully somebody els
  • I think I remember popups...From the late '90s, right? Wow. It's been so long since I've seen one of those that I didn't even remember what they looked like. I remember the X10, the "YOU HAVE WON 5 DOLLARS!"... You know, ever since I switched away from that one web browser...what was it called? Intranet Exprawler? I can't remember now. It's been too long. Anyway, ever since then, I haven't really had a problem with popups. In fact, since I installed that special HOSTS file that denies most major banner ad p

  • Kompressor has succeeded!

    We Must Destroy X10 [iuma.com]

  • So let me get this straight... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sowbug ( 16204 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:05PM (#7294319) Homepage

    October 7: X-10 loses the lawsuit. Compensatory damages are $4.3 million. The punitive damages hearing, where the huge dollar figures are likely to be determined, is to take place October 22.

    October 8-20: X-10 and its lawyers think about how to generate the most sympathy for their plight -- specifically, how to make themselves sound pathetic so that the jury will keep the punitive damages figure low.

    October 21: X-10 files for bankruptcy the day before the punitive damages hearing was to take place. But they don't really file for bankruptcy: As the CNet article states, "X10 filed what the bankruptcy court termed a 'deficient' filing, meaning that it lacked a statement of its financial affairs." In other words, X-10 is a privately held company, and like any private company it doesn't want to divulge its financial affairs. So it claims that it's filed for bankruptcy, getting all the PR benefit of a true filing without any of the real costs, such as having to disclose private financial affairs.

    The best estimate of their debts that they can come up with is between $10 million and $50 million? They really have no idea whether they owe $10 million or $50 million??? Or maybe they just prefer not to say -- and why would you specify your debts publicly if you didn't have to?

    I bet they never complete their bankruptcy filing. It seems like nothing more than a tactical maneuver to keep the overall damages low.

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