customers buying these things like crazy gonna be a support nightmare ! And no, not going in any meaningful diag labs at all.

Mike is cute too !

From the looks of AGBT Life is putting everything into IT. Have they really given up on Solid? Is it that bad or hard to use?

No, it's just that LIFE's sales "strategy" is to to sell the suckers (sorry, customers) whatever it is that the bean counters say that it is important to sell this quarter. Ion Torrent is the "solution du jour" for every customer. Until the next shiny object comes along.

Christie is still awesome

"You are definitely right! Sour grapes abound here. It's always someone else fault!"

Well if it isn't the king of malapropisms again. Both of you dolts need to look up the meaning of "sour grapes." The fable has nothing to do with "someone's fault" or anger or bitterness or complaining. It has to do with a specifc category of cognitive dissonance. Please read the fable and come back to tell us what it means. Maybe write us a 500 word expository paragraph. If you do a good job, maybe we'll put in a good word and you'll finally get that long awaited promotion to 7th grade.

From the looks of AGBT Life is putting everything into IT. Have they really given up on Solid? Is it that bad or hard to use?

Until a security guy shows up at your cubicle with a small box after 18 years of productive work

sour grapes will get you nowhere

You are definitely right! Sour grapes abound here. It's always someone else fault!

sour grapes will get you nowhere

sour grapes will go you nowhere.

Lucifer definitely makes decisions based on stock price (which his compensation is tied to) not the best interests of the customers. In modern corporate America that is seen to be meritorious - that your obligation is to stockholders. Well it shouldn't take a Harvard MBA - or even a Coleman College typing student - to understand that what is good for a stock price short term is not necessarily best for a business or a corporation. What is always good for a business is doing the best you can do for your customers. A healthy business means returns to investors, stable opportunites for employees, long term sustainability of a corporation. The total history of Invitrogen is an interesting and fairly sordid story that will one day become its own course in the Harvard MBA school. American Tragedy 102

Have some balls Life and do the right thing for your employees ! Show some respect !

when will Cell Systems Division be divested and for how much. heard that BK at biolegend has a hard on for this opportunity... MP look out, he is coming after you

If your main focus is not about products, execution and brand but rather your bonus, hey the Enron folks had plenty of bonus' too. Running the place like it's AIG sure isn't going leave a lasting impression.

You see Greg, when you introduce fear, short term gain, job reduction, bad metrics... this is what you get, a bunch of folks who will only tell you what you want to hear, not what you should know.

2010 numbers made, 100%-350% bonuses paid in the executive suite, that's all GL needs to know.

---Stokes is coming out later this year. That should be exciting and finally replace the BT machine---

Hahahaha, no it's not and if it was, it would be worthless. I heard that stokes thing from a rep, nice smoke screen, who cares, it's not really a product. As far as I am concerned, Life tech took real time pcr and microfluidic (TLDA for example) and just made it worst in all possible ways. You had something good and you sat on it and then created products that overlap each other, make no sense in price and lost way too much market share for the profit margin you are asking. Now years later, you are dropping your pants and no one wants to believe you were a leader. Leaders know their markets and competitors.

Stokes=just like Open Array, bad product from the get go. Is that really all you look forward to, a bunch of mingled plastic bundles...

The funny joke is the mere fact that TLDAs are still made by a monkey at 3M across the continent... are you kidding me ? Is that what you call process ? Of course no one with intention want to explain that one to the boss, right ? Cause the boss thinks he's the best, like an emperor with no clothes...

Great post right on the money until the part about europe having the answer. Not !

nice post!! I agree with you completely.

Stokes is coming out later this year. That should be exciting and finally replace the BT machine

There isn't one. It's all about poor execution to the wrong crowd. Most people know (just from AGBT alone) that next gen mutation analysis remain a massively difficult objective, there will be no clarity before 10 years if that. More people are arguing that cancer sequencing is going to be just a massive bag of confusion.

However, during that Time GL goes out on Ted and basically explains that we are almost cured... employs a fake MD while most practitioner still are unaware of a basic BRCA test (done the good old fashion way) and expects a PGM in every cabinet while sample prep, library prep is still unexplained. But wait, GL goes on further and introduces a Life Tech add during a Cornhusker game in the stadium. Well done GL !

During this time ILMN simply introduces what scientists ask for.

Now watch capillary business stall and confuse. Next quarter should be lower yet.

The poster below is extremely dead on. ABI simply does not know how to execute anymore. Understanding how to leverage portfolio has been by far the biggest problem, I would say that it starts by the poor promotions and selections for that. I mean BB (are you kidding me). I still remember the meeting 2 years ago, keep the name, change the name, merge the sales, keep sales separate, merge the products, keep the products separate, have a single price policy, easy to understand, have a 1% policy with blind business analyst. Have 2 months promos for sales cycle that take 6 months. Have rev rec replace any kind of respectful business relationship you may have with a 10 year customer by force shipping a machine before it is sold. Forecast twice a day and create false expectation. Introduce real time stock and production by creating more back orders than ever. Thinking research project are infinite in demand and much like a bottling company. Introduce half ass ready products at ridiculous list price with market studies made by 20 year old MBAs who still live at home. Forecast in unit numbers instead of AUP. Sell 5 types of competing taqs and mastermixes by 3 sales force (ABI force who knows which one will work at the right price, IVGN force who will sell anything at the worst price and try to put it in a fake supply center with hidden ship costs, finally Inside Sales who have absolutely no training what so ever).

You know, all these things were known to the field, by either support, specialists, reps. It was a few managers, some in sales, who were so detached to what was going on that started pushing down the crap from upstairs. I don't know or have heard of any manager trying to argue against these destructive moves. In some cases, I know managers putting their reps at the forefront of an argument and then have the rep labeled as a rebel (talk about being cowards).

They lost control really. A proof of that was to completely remove the GA folks from that big mess and have them work as a close knit community with quick communication transfer and fast acting management. That was a great move, however, it took IVGN 2 years to move solid to Hitachi, if that Hitachi product was out 2 years ago, ABI would have been a bigger player. Compared to the Hitachi box, the old SOLID machine is absolute horror. I feel sad for the AB reps who did not move to the GA side... Poor you, prepare to be treated worst than trash.

Now they are trying to scramble the cards with PGM, but that is 100K and support is gonna be massive, so good luck with that cause there is no way you will sell so many. Just won't happen. Even the reps aren't convinced.

Then by the time capillary moves to FDA (who knows of it's worthwhile) NGS will likely be a bigger market and all those efforts will have been in vain because you will be able to score 96 BRCA in 2 hours for about 1% of the cost. And you think people are gonna care about your FDA approved capillary... ?

Maybe you should look at us in Europe as far as clinical genomics, we do our own stuff and we don't listen to Carlsbad, yet we end up with better solutions to our customers. Funny how that happens when the head office gets out of the way.

Haaaa Life Tech, you're just too late and the sad part is that we can all remember having these talks over and over, with PMs, sales manager, field reps, Directors... yet you all decided to save your job instead of speak the truth.

You see Greg, when you introduce fear, short term gain, job reduction, bad metrics... this is what you get, a bunch of folks who will only tell you what you want to hear, not what you should know.

What is their "molecular medicine" strategy exactly? I didn't think blank pieces of paper count as a marketing plan. And with BB in charge....good lord...there is no chance for KC and her drones. LIFE has a loooonnnngg way to go before becoming a "real" diagnostic company. It takes more than lip service by GL.

Plus all those recnetly laid off have said goodbye (sold) their stock. Why keep the stock when you KNOW the company is in decline?

Absolutely true, just look at the so called molecular medice strategy

Have to admit. The issues are totally leadership related. I understand the need for managerial rigor...at the end of the day the company needs to post profits. However, LT leadership is so completely unaware of how to leverage their portfolio...this lack of technical and application awareness makes them vulnerable to making tremendously ill-informed investments (5 out of the last 4 have failed...need I name them). This also explains why the LT culture has remained overly cautious and risk averse...LT is frankly unable to move quickly into new market segments...despite having the resources. This is simply an issue of market knowledge and will.

well said....

Have to admit. The issues are totally leadership related. I understand the need for managerial rigor...at the end of the day the company needs to post profits. However, LT leadership is so completely unaware of how to leverage their portfolio...this lack of technical and application awareness makes them vulnerable to making tremendously ill-informed investments (5 out of the last 4 have failed...need I name them). This also explains why the LT culture has remained overly cautious and risk averse...LT is frankly unable to move quickly into new market segments...despite having the resources. This is simply an issue of market knowledge and will.

love the back pedaling about operating margin by Eileen. Incredible!

dive in stock price must be maddening for LIFE when they beat the street's estimates. Their big problem is that their technology is so obviously 'mature' - enzymes, PCR, low growth CE, etc. Add the fact they are getting totally schooled by Illumina on the NGS side, and spent a lot of money on Ion Torrent which will have to be sold in HUGE volume to ever get a decent return on that investment, and you end up with a forward P/E ratio of 14 or so.

someone explain this to me. their stock price shot down by 2 dollars today even though they had better than expected earnings for Q4

Their stock is climbing everyday. If SOLID and BioTrove are really doing that bad, why is their stock price going up?

Let's see:

Today-underperforming relative to NASDAQ and DOW
Last week-underperforming relative to NASDAQ and DOW
Last month-underperforming relative to NASDAQ and DOW
Last quarter-underperforming relative to NASDAQ and DOW
Last year-underperforming relative to NASDAQ and DOW
Last 5 years-underperforming relative to NASDAQ and DOW

Sometimes things need to be viewed in context.

First day at AGBT, zero customer talk on SOLID.

This year, it's all about Ion Torrent. SOLiD is so last year. They've spend their budget this year on flying in "the world's leading scientists" that are quickly forming the IT "user community." Exciting resultsare on the way!!

Is it still the same guy in charge of the North, man that guy is probably the worst manager to come by my office. Thick as can be.

Ion torrent has no chemistry at this point, Ion torrent has no software at this point, ion torrent can barely sequence 75 bp at this point. Ion Torrent has no Nextera solution at this point, Ion torrent has no Kappa library quant. kits at this point. Ion Torrent isn't really 50K when you see all you need upstream and downstream.

This is really a nightmare for them, they placed units, oh yes they did. Just watch the original Ion Torrent folks walk away next quarter when the sky falls on Lifetech. Feeding low priced instruments to cheap customer is going to be a NIGHTMARE !

If Ion torrent doesn't get longer reads = bye bye 700 million.

First day at AGBT, zero customer talk on SOLID.

Someone please find me an Ion Torrent library protocol...

I hope that the SEC decides to take a closer look at Life once they post yet another quarter of fabricated profits.

I don't give a crap about your stock price. It means nothing to me, it can come crashing down like no tomorrow for all I know. Go back to the basics.

The stock price is the only thing GL cares about. He doesn't give a crap about your lousy experiments. Tune in tomorrow, I'm sure sequencing is doing great and Ion Torrent is about to take down Illumina.

I couldn't agree more - you read my mind. RIP Applied Biosystems - best company I ever worked for. If these Invitrogen idiots ever get off Twitter and listen to the people around them rather than their "word association clouds" they'd realize their declining numbers are due to stabbing AB and everyone proud to work for AB in the chest with their idiocracy.

I love Life Technologies but in the last year and half, they have been just all over the place

This I can agree with. Applied Biosystems was a great place to work...however, Invitrogen is a terrible, terrible company and the merger has been a horrible experience for all legacy AB employees.

Completely different mindset of cheap cheap cheap.

Joe's delusions happen in log space(sic.)

I guess that's how he justifies his salary...

I wouldn't say I don't know "anything." You reveal something with every word and some fools are easier to identify than others.

Sure thing tough guy! You sure have my number.

Is the Foster City site closing?

"What?? There was just an article on single molecule FRET in December's BioTechniques where JB was touting how brilliant Starlight is. 10x the data of Ion Torrent in 1/40 the time. 100,000 individual reads, 300 bases a minute for several minutes. Reads of > 1kb."

Joe's delusions happen in log space(sic.)

I wouldn't say I don't know "anything." You reveal something with every word and some fools are easier to identify than others.

...drooling and simple minded...simpering stooge...Sr. Sycophant...

My, my. Very bitter!

You don't know anything about me. Your accusations are quite comical! Have fun in you bitter, trollish and pathetic world.

I feel sorry for you and I truly hope you have a great day.

It will get better!

And your drooling and simple minded - and equally anonymous, btw - dismissal of legitimate criticism is helping to improve the human condition how???

Of course like any simpering stooge I'm sure you're echoing all your sentiments to your bosses so I guess it's not totally anonymous is it. Maybe you'll get a promotion to Sr. Sycophant. Soon the world will be your oyster.

Uh yeah.

Sure thing. Can't slip anything past you.

I guess sitting around complaining is the best recourse for anonymous keyboard warriors like yourself.

Carry on.

The Stooge

Try again; from Merriam Webster:

STOOGE
a : one who plays a subordinate or compliant role to a principal b : puppet

I don't think your characterization of anti-corporate anarchists remotely qualifies, do you - even if that were what is going on here? A reactionary boob who feels compelled to defend a particular corporation despite example after example of greed, incompetence and iniquity does qualify.

I'm sure your weaselly reverance for Life Technologies and superiority of the rights of corporation rights will continue right up to the day you are shyte-canned not becasue of your job performance but to try and salvage the havoc wrought by ridiculous machinations of the front office. Likely you ARE one of the front office stooges (certainly aspire to be) but keep in mind the ship is large and places on the life boats are few - even for rats.

There was an artist's drawing of how brilliantly it worked and everything.

Single molecule sequencing never happened

What?? There was just an article on single molecule FRET in December's BioTechniques where JB was touting how brilliant Starlight is. 10x the data of Ion Torrent in 1/40 the time. 100,000 individual reads, 300 bases a minute for several minutes. Reads of > 1kb.

I love Life Technologies but in the last year and half, they have been just all over the place

This I can agree with. Applied Biosystems was a great place to work...however, Invitrogen is a terrible, terrible company and the merger has been a horrible experience for all legacy AB employees.

Completely different mindset of cheap cheap cheap.

I love Life Technologies but in the last year and half, they have been just all over the place. The reps would sell anything if they could, they must work from fear. This means they will push stuff that doesn't work. This means they will promise things that never happened. Single molecule sequencing never happened, single cell sequencing never happened, Ignite never happened, Solid 4 HQ will never happen, the Solid PI will never happen, Attune will never grow, OA will never really work... Who comes up with all these lies, I mean there are even fake mock ups of these instruments at shows !

Sorry but if Hunkapiller was ever behind those, he would have apologized to all the scientists out there.

I want my apology, I want a rep who will be honest with me, I want a company who will not charge me more, the more I buy. I want the old company back. I don't give a crap about your stock price. It means nothing to me, it can come crashing down like no tomorrow for all I know. Go back to the basics.

Evidently you don't know what "stooge" means. Look up the definition, read your post again and then kindly tell us who the stooge in the room is.

Stooge: Someone under the control of others. I know the meaning.

Most of the stooges here are under the control of the mob mentality on an anonymous rumor site.

No new ideas here. Just the same ole "Big corporations suck! I am great and have all these wonderful ideas but no one will listen! Why am I such a failure? I think I will post up my great ideas and theories on how big companies are failing on an anonymous rumor site! That will show them! Yay for me!"

If SOLID and BioTrove are really doing that bad, why is their stock price going up?

Because all these bitter people are full of sh*t. They have nothing better to do with their time than try and break down a sucessful company.

All companies have issues - none are perfect. Just like the trolls who constantly bash big pharma.