Yes HC, he did say he's been informed that the Pogos have been moving well and that he expects a follow-on battery order very soon.
The Valence story seems pretty clear to me now. Certainly changing chemistry horses in mid stream put them back to square one, more or less. Lev's prediction that 'the dam would break' with customers lining up after the initial orders were received didn't come true. The former management appeared to be out of their element in a sales/marketing role. And a few other things as well.
The new crew, being from a sales background, probably concluded very quickly that no big OEM would be real excited about committing a new product, such as a notebook pc, to an unproven single source for battery power. Not a surprising fact of life, and a difficult obstacle for a new company to overcome. So they decided to enter the market with the N-Charge unit which OEM's can offer as an accessory which would not directly impact sales of the OEM's own product should Valence have trouble supplying them. If performance problems cropped up with the N-Charge (not likely IMO), the OEM's reputation wouldn't suffer - it's the battery maker's fault, not theirs. Just like all those Sony (and Panasonic?) battery recalls last year.
The new team also saw a second opportunity to enter the market without the need for an OEM to commit to their product. The drop-in after market battery pack format that will fit hundreds of millions of existing products. Let the cylindrical battery makers who have the equipment make them using Valence's phosphate chemistry.
These products should provide the avenue for proving the design and building a track record while generating real revenues. At the same time, the long relationship they have built with Acer now appears to be paying off. Acer and Wistron are willing to take Valence on as a supplier for new products. I believe Stephan said they're building a supply in NI, a cushion I believe he called it, to ensure against any glitches along the way. After all the bs and broken promises we've heard the past few years, it's now beginning to look like things are falling into place.
- T - |
