POET Technologies Inc.

Re: Gaining greater control over POET's destiny...Good post Rainer!

I am beginning to piece together why we ended up with this low priced PO. One of the biggest problems was communications…like usual. We have all struggled with trying to understand the problems that have been confronted by POET to gain access to modified epi wafers that are necessary for the iterations necessary to develop the VCSEL. I was extremely pleased to see the success they had with the detector as it really pointed to good quality 6 inch wafers…no bowing and accurate layering across the wafer. As we know the strength of POET is the unique vertical topology of the epi-stack with many layers that come together to produce each device. Not all layers are utilized for each device but the thyristor structure is the fundamental differentiator and the dominant structure. Thus the extremely good results of that structure when fabricated as a detector was extremely important as a measure of what can be anticipated for the laser. And really my whole basis for this belief goes right back to early discussions with Geoff Taylor when we were waiting on the first continuous wave laser.If you can do the detector then you can do the laser because it is the same structure…that is what I was told.

But back to my point. When the PO was announced we were all dumb founded as to why POET needed the money. They had never explained this in advance. The market does not like surprises (not those kind of surprises). Delays, no apparent NRE and no explanation to help us understand or justify the need. My understanding is that POET management did not expect the share price to go into decline after the PO was announced and that the discount would be applied to the prevailing trading price of .80 or there about. I guess in their mind they saw the pluses associated with getting for the first time US registered securities and the ability for the roadshow to generate good interest as sophisticated investors would see their vision and understand how disruptive the technology is and how it could dominate a growing industry with its unparalleled capabilities. The price had already gone into decline after the announcement of the PO and by the time they even addressed shareholders (the CC) the price had already dropped to .60 and that was really more about confusion regarding the need for the PO at such a low price. We got clobbered going into it the CC and after it so by the time the price was set POET was trading at .48 and the discount took it down to .36 something that the company never anticipated when the process had started. The point is if the company had done a better job of communicating the issues that were confronting them it would not have been a surprise to the market and instead of people feeling like the sky was falling POET shareholders would have understood the need. The letter to shareholders should have been proactive to explain some of the background first before announcing the PO.

Going forward we can hope that they do a much better job at keeping shareholders in the loop. As I think that lesson has been learned. My advice is to spend some of that money to put some video rich content on your website to help explain what POET is. The view of POET being the disruptive technology that has been described has been tarnished by this low financing and we need to regain that vision of what POET is.

I expect to be sending this address to Suresh, Brett and Mike.