Talk:MiniScribe

Dates?

The linked NY Times article says that the collapse was at the end of 1988, not 1989. In fact, the article is dated September 1989 and descibes the release of the company's report into the alleged fraud.Steve Graham (talk) 17:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

xt-series drives?

On New Year's Day 1990, MiniScribe declared bankruptcy and announced that it was up for sale. In April, Maxtor purchased the company. Maxtor was looking for a PC-friendly companion line to its high-end XT-series drives,

XT is linked to "IBM Personal Computer XT" here, and that in combination with "PC-friendly" suggests a comparison between drives for the IBM PC XT and drives for the original IBM PC. This can't be right, can it? By 1990 the XT (not to mention the the IBM PC, which differed from the XT mainly in having no built-in hard drive) was dead as a doornail; 386's were more the order of the day. I'm assuming that 'XT', independently, wsa the name of Maxtor's drive line, so I removed the link.

That is correct; the high end drives were the XT-xxxx models (one that would have been current on the early 1990s was the XT-8760E 700MB drive, which I last saw in an old NEC RomMaker CD-mastering rig about 10 years ago). I forget what differentiated the MXT and LXT models, but they all used the same basic architecture that dated all the way back to the XT-1000 in 1982. As an aside, I suppose that they wanted out of high-end SCSI because Seagate pretty much owned that area then, the XT-series designs were ESDI-based and quickly becoming obsolete, and all the R&D was going on with the former MiniScribe team in Longmont, whose specialty was mainstream 3.5-inch drives. -lee 15:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Changed the headers, article needs rewriting

I changed the headers because they looked like they were from a novel not from an encyclopedia. Article is factual, but sounds too much like a story and not enough like an encyclopedic article IMHO. Leokennis 13:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I originally wrote this article (years ago, actually), and yeah, it could use some toning down; I was still pretty fresh from writing on Everything2 -- which not only allows but encourages story-like writing -- and I got a little fluffy with things. If there's anything in particular you'd like changed, let me know. -lee 05:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Bricks

The wording is unclear, and seems to imply individual drive boxes were filled with bricks. From the court appeal referenced, it doesn't seem that the bricks were placed in the individual boxes, but that bricks were placed on pallets that were wrapped and boxed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.83.72.162 (talk) 10:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The bricks were placed in boxes set in the bottom 2 levels of the pallet so it would be balanced correctly. The rational for the bricks was so the shipping weights would be correct for a pallet of disk drives. It is rather humorous to look back on, renting warehouse space, hiring temps, buying bricks (all cash transactions) doing all on the “down low”. I still have a parting gift from some of my team members, a brick with a PCB glued to it complete with mounting rails, serial number and QA stickers. THMGOLFER (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I remmber the MiniScribe story well - it was covered in detail in several trade magazines at the time. My old 300MB 5.25" full height MiniScribe SCSI hard disk eventually became a brick (stopped working around 1992). In spring of 1992, I drove about 75 miles to Fall River MA (near Battleship Cove - USS Massachusetts) to trade to for a 9,600 baud external modem. The swapping party knew it was dead, but supposedly had ideas for it... 98.118.62.140 (talk) 04:47, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

MiniScribe analysis missing major elements

It is reasonably correct up to the point where it says it lost the IBM business which I think happened in late 1983 or early 1984. After that it misses the big circus.

After losing the IBM business in 1985, MiniScribe struggled and ultimately Hambrecht and Quist invested $21MM and installed QT Wiles as chairman. Prior to MiniScribe QT had many major success in turning high tech companies around. He turned MiniScribe around very dramatically attracting Apple, Compaq, Dell and other major OEMs as customers. When MiniScribe's business suffered from a somewhat normal industry slowdown in 1987 and 1988 some of QT's underlings began the fraud which culminated in the brick shipments.

When this information came to light, QT did not bring the information immediately to light. Rather, he wanted to investigate further. This got him fired, he was convicted of fraud and insider trading and ultimately served time. More than one investigator disagreed with he and his son-in-laws testimony and believe QT took the fall to protect his daughter and grandchildren.

After QT, the board, lead by Bill Hambrecht, then appointed Dick Rifenburgh as CEO. At one time there were three sets of auditors at the company (Coopers who was the old auditor, Arthur Young replacing Coopers, and Ernst and Whinny as the board's investigating auditor), consultants from a special investigatory committee, and future SEC chief Harvey Pitt. Under his leadership MiniScribe spent millions and millions of dollars on accountants, lawyers, and consultants rather than R&D or clean rooms. Indeed, one of Rifenburgh's largest accomplishments was presenting the SEC's enforcement division with a 1,500 page document containing the results of the in-house investigation.

Once Rifenburgh and his team finally signed off on the financial restatements, diligent observers noticed there was relatively little fraud -- about $20 MM on the bottom line with the bricks representing about $7.4MM in revenue. This was very different from the often quoted $300+ MM anticipated. Turns out the questions around the $300+ MM was not whether the money came in or not. It was about which quarter did the money come in. Of course this timing had impact on the stock price. One question that no one asked was $20MM material in the context of a $750MM company?

When publishing the financials, Rifenburgh did not take the advice of the company's inventory managers or the control team. Most of the controllers signed off on the audit for fear of dismissal or demotion. These fears were justified as those who did not sign were demoted. Several weeks later, the company had to restate again to reflect a $20MM inventory issue that likely occurred on during Rifenburgh's watch.

During the summer of 1989 Rifenburgh's received a large raise in exchange for his options. Following that shift, Rifenburgh rarely showed at the company before 10:00 am and was usually gone by 3 or 4:00 PM. He also spent considerable time away from the company. He was in fact staying in San Francisco at the company's expense during the earthquakes of 1989.

He was in the office briefly to instruct the company spokesperson to tell investors that he would be making an interest payment due bondholders. The morning the payment was due, Rifenburgh ordered the payment not be made.

Somewhat predictably, Rifenburgh's strategy pushed the struggling company under and it declared bankruptcy a few seconds after midnight on January 1, 1990. Rifenburgh and his team wanted to be the first bankruptcy in a new decade. In the bankruptcy auction, Rifenburgh's bid was above that of the winner Maxtor's however it was not acceptable to the court. Yes I have a bias. Then again I was one of the investigators and can tell you where the bricks wound up and how much I enjoyed working in the broom closet office I was given after refusing to sign the audit. Gerard6656 (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Unreference additions

An editor has repeatedly added two claims to the last paragraph without providing references. The first is that CoData was founded with the intent of building a 3.5" hard drive with the capacity of then-standard 5.25" drives. The second was that CoData was purchased by Conner Peripherals in 1986.

After some toing and froing, a reference was finally provided following the second claim, though it was clearly intended to cover both points. It does cover the first claim, though it takes a little unravelling. However it fails to address the second claim because the reference does not mention Connor Peripherals purchasing CoData anywhere. It does claim that CoData became Connor Peripherals but this, for all we know, could have just been a name change rather than a buyout (the word 'became' does not suggest a purchase). Thus any interpretation of 'became' into 'purchased' is pure WP:SYNTHESIS. The author of the statements claimed that they were 'trivially checkable'. I have not been able to verify the second claim so it seems far from trivial to verify it. --Elektrik Fanne 15:27, 27 April 2016 (UTC)