Days before the company received a Wireless Wonders 2000 award for the ingenuity and productivity of its Ricochet 128 kbps technology, the San Jose company released its disappointing fourth quarter results. The company said that its cash and investments dwindled to $526.8-million from $792.2-million at the end of last year due to the deployment of its high-speed network. It went further to say that in the absence of financing, the business would not have sufficient resources to continue operations.

Following the press conference on February 8^th, headlines began to circulate that it was intending to "shut down" operations. To calm the rhetoric, the company issued a clarifying statement the next day, acknowledging that times are challenging and full of risks, but there are no plans to shut down Ricochet networks, as management is continuing to work on the following:

• Holding discussions with many parties to seek permanent funding.
• Scaling back further network building and operating costs until funding is sought.
• Working with partners to continue to bring Ricochet to more users.

The growth and continual operations of Ricochet, the wireless product that has been praised for allowing laptops to gain high-speed access to corporate networks, is now dependent on those investors who believe in its potential to attract subscribers and generate profits.