Again, many thanks for the transcript. However, I don’t really understand your mood.
>As I listened to the CC it struck me as somber and maybe I was just transferring my mood to their words <g>, but as Frank on reading it says it was 'heartening' & I have to agree, a little. Yes the corpus is alive but my pulse didn't quicken much even with the reread.<
IMO, quite a few people -- probably most -- felt as you did; but I think this is because few understand how many steps are involved in the commercialization of ECD's tech. In particular, the various ECD/JV customers are OEMs, who must do a lot of off-the-production-line-product testing before they will even design a product into their systems. This means that we must establish production capacity well in advance of orders beyond evaluation quantities -- for the most part, at least.
I am leaving on a short vacation and only have time for a few cursory comments; but, I hope to "hearten" you a bit.
>As an investor I am trying to understand Stan's beliefs. For example, how can 1000 miles of 8.5% PV equal only 30 MW? <
This continues to be a good question. Perhaps they simply want to be conservative and to have a pleasant surprise later?
Re BluRay -- first , thanks for reminding me of the correct spelling. Blue-Ray bothered me for some reason. <g>
>GE Ovonic has always known that DVD disks with capacity to record/store 2+ hours of HDTV was the consumer holy grail and knowing that, must have anticipated this BEFORE NOW and should be deciding not if/when but how many/how large manuf. plants they will build IMO.<
Yes, but I think BluRay has -- by way of the violet diode developments, including an anticipated/accomplished(?) IP issue settlement between the two main V-diode developers (didn't Stan say something about this?) and perhaps other developments -- jumped ahead in time frame; and this would naturally compel some change in ECD/GE thinking about their plans.
>. . .and now we are almost to January 2003 and as Stempel says we're basically 'on hold' to consider the influence of BluRay despite the fact that Stempel states technically we can emboss disks 24X faster than the rest of the industry.<
Careful -- "on hold" is not only vague but Stan clarified that the program was still hot. I think Stempel's "on hold" means only that they are re-planning to accommodate the latest industry plans for BluRay. Availability of quality BluRay discs in volume may now be an industry concern and ECD may be considering early entry into this market. I think you can rest assured that ECD/GE know what they are doing -- and, perhaps, an early contract from Sony or someone might be in the offing. Whatever, I see no reason for being disheartened simply because Stempel chose, in impromptu remarks, an inappropriate word that lead people to believe the optical disc program is stalled -- absolutely not true, IMO.
As for being able to make any disc format, there has never been any expressed doubt about that form ECD. But, special, expensive tooling -- ultra-fine embossing dies for example -- must be made and validated for each disc type. And, the BluRay discs probably place precision demands on our processing that were not, as I see it, earlier planned until quite a bit later than now. So, IMO, time for a change in plans, which Stempel said was imminent.
>All in all, I'm bullish on the machine, nervous about marketing challenges, excited about possible new PV products and pleased that we're working now with Lockheed and Boeing on space PV arrays (anybody else notice the absence of a PR last October?) and perplexed that $40M is needed for operating capital for the next year when no such thing was said earlier by Bekaert or ECD or did I miss something in the last 500 pages of filings?<g><
Amen -- except that the $40 million need was mentioned quite a bit earlier; when they had in mind a sale/lease-back of the reputed 30 MW machine. It strikes me as a bit high, though. Perhaps they plan massive sales efforts. <g>
Let's bear in mind that if ECD is substantially, at least, on target in all their product developments, that is a massive accomplishment. And precisely when these developments get done is far less important than simply that they do get done. The markets are not moving so fast that we need be unduly worried about being left behind -- our high-quality, high-performance products will win out, IMO. |
