Carbonite Crashes After Limbaugh Backlash

Carbonite Crashes After Limbaugh Backlash

Since Carbonite CEO David Friend thought it wise to lecture existing and potential customers on his idea of a needed civility, the company’s stock has dropped 20%, according to Terry Ponick of the Washington Times, and now sits at 60% off a 2011 high mark in a difficult market. 

But Friend will always have MSNBC and the left’s nutroots, who apparently don’t have much money to spend on Carbonite. At this point, it’s unclear if Carbonite has what it takes to restore itself.

Carbonite went public in an IPO last August, pricing its initial offering at $10 per share. This was somewhat lower than original market expectations, perhaps due in part to last summer’s market turmoil. Nonetheless, CARB was initially lofted by the usual high-tech thermals, quickly soaring to $21.10 before commencing its steady, ongoing dive into oblivion.

Prior to the Limbaugh flap, CARB had already retreated this year to slightly below its IPO offering price. Since then, it’s continued its downward cascade, closing today at $8.05 per share, roughly a 20% drop pre-Limbaugh/Fluke and a nearly 60% drop from its 2011 peak.

According to Prof. Jacobson, Carbonite’s direct competition “includes Prosoftnet, CrashPlan, Mozy (a division of VMWare, VMW), Symantec’s (SYMC) Norton Online Backup, McAfee Online Backup (a division of Intel, INTC), SOS Online Backup, and others.”

In other words, in the networking world, little Carbonite is already battling seriously deep-pocketed mid-to-large cap corporations for its share of the Internet backup business. Perhaps this is one reason why its shares have made little headway since its IPO. Friend’s boneheaded PR decision simply made matters worse for his hapless stockholders.

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