Is This IPO 'Alienating' Wall Street to RFID?

This analysis in eWeek by Evan Schuman is apt to leave you as conflicted as me. Most of us think it's a good thing when RFID wins Wall Street's interest, at long last. At the same time, there's apt to be the shared thought that it won't do very much good in the long run if the early spotlight falls on duds. Just how potentially scary is this expected IPO by Alien Technology?

What the IPO makes clear is that Alien has never been profitable. "We incurred net losses of $19.1 million, $27.6 million and $53.0 million in fiscal 2003, fiscal 2004 and fiscal 2005, respectively, and $17.9 million in the three months ended December 31, 2005," the statement said. "Net loss allocable to common stockholders was $44.5 million, $27.6 million and $53.0 million in fiscal 2003, fiscal 2004 and fiscal 2005, respectively. As of December 31, 2005, we had an accumulated deficit of $201.2 million."

But wait, is it possible this could sound even worse?

"To date, we have had limited success in accurately predicting future sales of our RFID products generally and our RFID tag products in particular. We expect that our visibility into future sales of our products, including both sales volumes and prices, will continue to be limited for the foreseeable future."