Catching up on the evening posts from North America as it dawns on a very rainy day here in the UK, a number of themes are running on the board which seem to amount to the same thing to me; this company is maturing very quickly and for the better. I like what we heard from the company very much indeed, but I don't think the good news was obvious or that we have got a proper handle on what really is brewing yet. Some speculation is still needed.
Whilst the Pinetree debacle is still smoldering, which appears to have cost SI his place on the board, his exit is no bad thing for most here and any value he represented to the board is now out of sync’ with where POET is now heading. Whilst the effect of this debacle on SP is undeniable, this only matters to those who evaluate POET in terms of their personal portfolios’ current net worth rather than the enormous potential its future worth represents in terms of IP, management ability and the vast market opportunities for its products. Pinetree has nothing to do with this and was never part of the company’s real valuation - a la Pelegrino. Pinetree has taken up far too much of this board's discussions to my mind - good riddance to a time wasting red herring I say.
As another poster mentioned there must be a good word for the phenomenon of one minute complaining about lack of news and then complaining about the news when it arrive. Yes we all wanted a News Report but what we got, and quite rightly so, was the publication of the Q2 company filings plus some hidden extras. Let me put it to you that the MD&A included some rather strange forward looking extras for what was meant to be a status report of the company finance and progress as at a specific point in time. For example, it included a warning order from the CEO (Suresh Venkatesen) about his vision statement and plans for where he is taking this company to be delivered in late-September. We got some other materiel clues that parts of this vision is already a work in progress - orders for raw matieriels. Many expressed their key word preference from the MD&A but the one I particularly like, and want to focus on, that hasn't been mentioned, is FAST TRACK.
Why a sudden rush to fast track?
1. Avoid PetStep Up. I particularly like the new focus on the whole POET IC package rather than the step up approach via PET, eliminating step up via pet saves time thus fast tracking.
2. Main goal. POET has always been the real goal to my mind, surely it is the Optical element where the magic of GT’s invention lies and where, as the MD&A states, the 'differentiation lies' between when POET is compared to other product offerings or near offering out there.
3. Strategic Imperative. I firmly believe they have hit on a factor for success particularly given IBM's new recently announced offerings in the same sphere of lll/V materiels and light. I think FAST TRACK has now become of strategic importance to be first to market, which is why that phrase has entered the company’s dialogue with its shareholders. Of interest is the abstract below that Yanning Sun of IBM is a Key Notespeaker at the IC Conference where Rainer will now represent us
Keynote
III-V/Si integration: Moore and more
Yanning Sun, Research Staff Member- IBM
Heterogeneous integration of high-speed III-V electronic and opto-electronic devices with low cost high density silicon devices is of great interest to future generation VLSI applications, as well as RF, high-power and optical applications. Compared with conventional approaches such as wafer bonding or multi-chip assemblies, direct growth of III-V material on silicon substrates with subsequent co-integration of III-V and silicon devices can eliminate the interconnect loss, and greatly increase the integration density. The main challenge of this approach is the high defect density in III-V epitaxial layers due to large lattice mismatch. Lots of progress has been made in the recent years to address this issue.
4. The question now forming in my mind, and I wonder if other agree, is whether this change in focus, POET rather than PET and 'low hanging fruit', the result of a TRAB meeting or SV's arrival or perhaps both? The new CEO certainly had to be involved in TRAB surely he had to be the one that would hold the ‘serious conversations', after achieving the Milestones. So given the countdown started in mid-June this would explain the silence as those important discussions took place.
5. Here I regret I must return to speculation to understand why we can now suddenly talking about fast track and making orders from suppliers. I am beginning to see Tony Blevin's influence here as it’s in his field of interest at the fruit company. We have seen that Dr Taylor clearly left the board delighted, with confidence, with his tail wagging and terrier like ready to get his teeth into the new technical direction and insight. SV and SD will have certainly rought something fresh from the coal face of IC manufacturing and development. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that there may have been a first meeting of the TRAB, which is consistent with the change in focus from milestones demonstrating performance to products. Clearly we have had to leap frog the three errant Milestone in favour of something new, fast track, as yet unstated and more urgent, in the form of product aligned milestones to be announced in September. Surely defining product milestones was the purpose of the TRAB.
My dot joining conclusion is that we have had that serious conversation with a Multi-Billion dollar client that PC mentioned at the February CIC in London, I believe because they like what they saw in development was enough and strategic imperatives to get to market quickly we now have been given the go ahead to fast track products defined by the TRAB. Let me ask you what, as the boss of any company, would your next action be after closing a big deal for your products? Surely, it would be to order the and raw materials to start making those products that's just what our company has done. I not work in progress the capital item talked of in the financials.
Finally, someone we have not heard of much of in recent discussion and he’s been very quiet, but I think we have much to thank Adjit Monacha for the success of this recruitment drive which seems to have been his stated principle role, but I suspect that his uncanny silence may be more to do with the fact that he is the silver tongued fox that is doing all the snake charming to get us to new era for POET. Adam and Eve and Apple come to mind and I firmly believe that the absence of anything from the Garden of Eden in the Q2 filings was quite a deliberate choice because of its reality and security needs.
Perhaps we, and as usual the press and chattering classes of the IC world, have missed the point a la ‘who this NR is for’ I think ‘we just ain’t seen nothing yet’ from the new boys and it all looks very exciting to me.
With apologies for being long winded.
sula
