Opticom ASA (OPC) One of the best kept secret or just another "to much talk" company?
Opticom is a research company traded at the Norwegian stockexchange. OPC is developing a new datastorage technology that definitely will turn the world around if they suceed. They use "plastic" instead of silicon and can reach "umlimited" storagecapacity with their technology.
Opticoms "dream"-scenario is as follows:
First it will replace the old technologies for RAM, ROM and harddrives that is used today. After that the time would come to also kiss optical storage like CD and DVD goodbye. And to end with, in the future ICs will be done in plastic instead of todays silicon technology.
I'd like to quote an article I read:
"Opticom, over the past two decades, have been developing a means by which data can be stored on plastic. This could have extremely serious implications for the silicon industry. Not only does this slash the manufacturing costs and significantly reduce the barriers to entry into the chip fabrication industry but it allows for considerably more complex and efficient chip designs to be created. To give an example, the company claims that using the Opticom technology, they could put an entire Pentium motherboard and CPU onto a piece of plastic the size of a postage stamp at a fraction of the cost."
- durlacher.com
But what we should focus on first is the possibilities that Opticom will replace todays RAM, ROM and HardDrives.
Joint development agreement with Bell Labs (the R&D arm of Lucent Technologies), joint venture with Eidos and agreement with AMP Inc for development of production technologies of the thinfilmbased datastorage- and related products that OPC are developing, means that they already are quite a bit on their way!
At the Shareholders meeting, may 29 -98, the management told that they are going on a roadshow in the states the second week in june (so watch out over there) to make connections with investors and establish some marketing channels.
It was also told that an American company had contacted Opticom, they want to develop RAM with Opticoms technology. A simple approach of Opticoms technology would mean 300 times larger storage capacity than today for a very low cost. Opticoms plasticfilm is in this case used upon a traditional silicon substrate. This way OPC can have a quick way to the market, even though the technology isn't utilised to its maximum due to the combined Silicon/Plastic solution (Only plastic would be better, but that mean new standards). OPC said that this is a defined project that uses already tested and functional solutions. They said that this market could mean licens-revenues about 650 MUSD per year.
Benefits with Opticoms storage-technology (stated by Opticom):
* "Unlimited" storagecapacity to a very low cost.
* Simple Production
* Small sizes
* Very Fast acess, and high bandwidth.
* No need for refreshing. (The memory is static), it only need power to change it's state not to keep it.
* Very low power usage, and that means no heat problem. This make it possible to have multiple layers of the thin plastic film of memorycells.
* Environment friendly
The soon to become classic statement 'with Opticoms technology every movie ever made in Hollywood could be stored digitally on ONE "Opticom-card"' was said once again.
Some links that could be interesting for an OPC-investor:
Norwegian Stock Exchange
ose.no
Real time quotes
base.nettvik.no
A little about Eidos and Opticom
durlacher.com
(Eidos is the next largest shareholdwer in Opticom, I think, with 15% of the stocks)
Bell Labs (Lucent) and Opticom
bell-labs.com
Eidos
eidos.co.uk
Pressreleases (Norwegian only)
base.nettvik.no
A Norwegian message-forum there some discussion about Opticom often can be found (Norwegian)
solbors.no
Opticom was an IPO in summer 97 to a price of 135 NOK. Den Norske Bank (DNB) took OPC to the market.
Today the shares are traded around 210 NOK, the market cap is around 2 billion NOK (about 260 MUSD).
The idee is to sell licenses of their technology. Gudesen have said that he doesn't think more capital from the owners is needed. The continuing development will from now bee financed by forthcoming revenue from licensing (the first money have already been paid by Eidos).
Opticom ASA
Brynsveien 3B
0667 Oslo
Norway
Telefon: (+44) 22970930
Fax: (+44) 22970935
Sorry, No Web-site. |
