To all,
It might be an interesting exercise to try to synthesize where we are in understanding this company after these several months of debate.
I'll take the first pass, and all are welcome to critique.
There have been two primary issues of debate - the company's technology, and its financial management.
The fonix technology - At one extreme, it has been claimed to be a scam (Mr. Pink); at the other, it has been claimed to be the Holy Grail of voice recognition (the company). I think it is clear that it is neither. The Siemens and OGI agreements, as well as some of the outside directors (such as Dr. Ashton) rule out the scam hypothesis (would you agree, John H. and Mr. Pink?); the level of commitment of Siemens and OGI (less than earth-shattering) and the lack of any blockbuster deals after all this time rule out the Holy Grail hypothesis (would you agree, Frank and Scruff?). So we're left that fonix has something valid, and at least a couple of us think that has more to do with the neural networks approach than the product demonstrated so far. Not much more can be said at this point, I think, about how good the technology is.
The fonix money management - I haven't heard any strong defense here. This company has paid its inside directors too generously, invested the proceeds from its stock offering unwisely, and it is unclear that it can continue as a "going concern" (per its own auditors). The Siemens agreement brings the first possibility of sustainable revenues, but not enough details were released to make any calculations about the magnitude of this potential, so about all we can say now is that the company probably will not go bankrupt tomorrow.
This obviously has my unavoidable slant on it (though I have tried to avoid that!); please critique! We may end up with something a newcomer to the thread would find quite helpful without plowing through a couple thousand posts.
Bob |
