| | | Latest from Agoracom: Webinar - non-technical perspective
I watched the entire webinar.
Ok, I may have fallen asleep, breifly, a couple times. But I think I did pretty well given that I was listening to group of guys speaking another language.
I'm not "Photonically Technical". For that matter, I'm not "Copperwise" either. But I DO understand the basic premise of 'copper - not good' / "optical communications - good'.
Here's my takewaway:
Lighmatter set up the webinar to have a few established companies developing CPO speak in the first session (Broadcom being the major one. Marvel was a no show. I don't know why). The second session was CPO start-ups (including Celestial AI), and the third was companies developing technology that will be used in CPO solutions (this is where POET fits in).
Each vendor went through a checklist of requirements and challenges, and they then described why God ordained thier company and solution to be the best.
Not speaking the language, I could still follow conversations directionallly, similar to how people who speak different languages can communicate through gestures and emotion. Broadcom, and the established CPO vendors, were taking the position that pluggables are dead and CPO is here, ready to ship and take over the world. CPO startups broadly stated that CPO will be the next coming of Christ, but that it had not yet been adopted by the market (I did think that Celestial came across as the most advanced start-up, and by listing their investors on the first slide they effectively demonstrated that Celestial is going to be a player for the market to contend with). CPO start-ups leaned toward a message that pluggables are still the standard, and they will be for some time - postioning their CPO development to final production as being in line with market adoption.
The final session - which, I should add, was past my bedtime (I may contact Lightmatter about this issue) - was the developers of technology that will be used for CPO. This was POET's place.
Overall, the concept that become most clear to me through this (excutiating) experience was that delivering CPO solutions to the market will require an ecosystem of technology providers collaborating together to provide the final product. Even Broadcom stated this. The end solutions for CPO will include components developed by partners. For me, this was a very encouraging sign for POET. For POET to survive in an industry with well funded, established vendors, they need GTM partners who can 'get them in the door'. POET can't just pick up a phone book and cold call IT execs to sell thier technology. They need to be a part of a total solution provided by established players (Or, leading start-ups like Celestial).
FJ/Ohio/BC, feel free to cut me down for my ignorance if necessary, but it looked to me (as I translated on the fly) that POET is saying that they are developing laser components for CPO based on the optical interposer. The value proposition is that the OI can deliver an unmatched density, and the way they align the lasers provides better efficiency. Most importantly, and I thought Raju did a good job repeating this point, is that POET can deliver these components through passive assembly, allowing them to reduce time to maket - scale quickly to meet demand - and reduce total costs for production.
Raju didn't address the market for pluggables. He didn't emphasize the current and near term demand for pluggables. At first, I thought he was missing an opportunity to highlight the viability of POET as a player in the market over the next 5 years or so while CPO is developed, tested, and implemented. However, I think Raju was sticking with the topic - CPO.
Overall, my biggest takeaway was that Lightmatter should have intercepted the Audio and run it through some kind of real time iTranslate program so that the rest of the world besides FJ could understand what the hell they were talking about. But I did takeaway a valuable message for POET investors:
POET has already established partners who are begining to sell their OE's in pluggable solutions. They have positioned themselves for the near term market (3-5 years?). But, more importantly, they are aggressively positioning themselves to participate in the CPO market, and they have unique and compelling technology that will play here. In fact, my bet is that Broadcom will announce a partnership at some point in the future. That's just MHO, but the business relationship connections are already in place, and if POET's CPO components are superior to others, it seems like a no-brainer.
Finallly, I'll say this - The webinar was intended for a technical audience. Most investors won't get much out of it, but that wasn't the intended audience. When POET reaches a point that they are attempting to get thier message to a broader audience beyond the techies, they need to bring in someone who understands how to take technical concepts and describe them in business terms. I'm not criticizing Raju at all. I thought he did a great job, and, in fact, I believe he was the right person to deliver the presentation (not Suresh. You reach a point as a start-up where you need someone other than the CEO to present at these things. When the CEO presents, it makes your company look smaller). At some point, POET needs a spin-master who speaks english - not for their customer base (those dudes are all techies), but for the financial community. IMHO |
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