News Column

Wireless Ronin Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Results

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Stock-based compensation. We exclude non-cash stock-based compensation expense because of varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of award types that companies can use under FASB ASC 718-10. Stock-based compensation expense is a recurring expense for our company and is expected to be in the future as we have a history of granting stock options and other equity instruments as a means of incentivizing and rewarding our employees.

Depreciation and amortization expense. Depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges that are impacted by our accounting methods and book value of assets. By excluding these non-cash charges, our management, together with our investors, are provided with supplemental metrics to evaluate cash earnings, distinguishing the impact of our performance on earnings from the impact of our performance on cash. Management believes that the review of these supplemental metrics in conjunction with other GAAP metrics, such as capital expenditures, is useful for management and investors in understanding our business. Depreciation is a recurring expense for our company and is expected to continue to be in the future as we continue to make further investments in our infrastructure through the acquisition of property, plant and equipment. Due to the exclusion of these non-cash items, investors should not use this metric as a measure of evaluating our liquidity. Instead, to evaluate our liquidity, investors should refer to the Consolidated Statements of Cash Flow and the Liquidity and Capital Resources section contained within Management's Discussion and Analysis in our most recently filed periodic reports.

Severance and other one-time charges. We exclude severance and other one-time charges that are the result of other, unplanned events as one means of measuring operating performance. Included in these expenses are items such as severance costs associated with the termination of employees as part of an unplanned restructuring, a non-acquisition-related restructuring and other charges. Because these events are unplanned and arise outside the ordinary course of continuing operations, by providing this information, we believe our management and our investors may more fully understand the financial results of what we consider to be organic continuing operations.

There are a number of limitations related to the use of non-GAAP operating loss and non-GAAP operating loss per share versus operating income and loss per share calculated in accordance with GAAP. First, these non-GAAP financial measures exclude stock-based compensation and depreciation expenses that are recurring. Both stock-based expenses and depreciation have been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, a significant recurring expense with an impact upon our company notwithstanding the lack of immediate impact upon cash. Second, stock-based awards are an important part of our employees' compensation and impact their performance. Third, there is no assurance we will avoid further personnel changes and, therefore, may recognize additional severance and other one-time charges associated with a future restructuring. Fourth, there is no assurance the components of the costs that we exclude in our calculation of non-GAAP operating loss do not differ from the components that our peer companies exclude when they report their results of operations. Our management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from these non-GAAP financial measures and evaluating these non-GAAP financial measures together with their most directly comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. The accompanying tables have more details on these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations between these financial measures and their most directly comparable GAAP equivalents.

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