Nevin, I hope you did well on RFMD or still own it!
I've been in Kopin about a year now with nothing to show but lost opportunity cost.
In the CyberDisplay FAQ on their website, Kopin refers to bandwidth limitations of the infrastructure as one reason why they expect demand for 1/4 VGA:
Q: Why QVGA as a starting point? Why not VGA, or SVGA?
A: The starting point for displays chosen for the first products such as those we have been discussing is set by the markets and the companies making products for those markets, not by display manufacturers. These companies choose QVGA because the cellular infrastructure to transmit VGA just isn't there today (i.e. memory, power and wireless bandwidth requirements are much higher than what current technology can deliver)...
It seems to me that delivering a few emails or pager messages to read at QVGA resolution should be doable without overtaxing the system. There should be some demand for that application alone from power users. The demos I've seen were designed to display a limited number of images, with screen navigation done by means of a few simple controls. Motorola should take a chance and put something out there, imo. Unless they show some initiative they will continue to lose market share. Maybe their problem is that they think too much like that Lehman analyst. They must stop analyzing and just do as much as they can at this moment.
Web browsing or real-time video will be a lot more demanding. For those apps, the concerns expressed in the report are probably valid. Siemens may have come to a similar conclusion wrt the browser. Investors must also be skeptical about this being an Internet play, judging by the relative performance of KOPN stock.
However, email may be more of a mass market than Lehman projects. I would expect that most cellular users would be interested in adding that capability. Still, the mainstream customer will have to be sold on the idea, so I agree that the market will probably develop slowly.
For digital cameras and CAMCORDERS the viewfinder will be enough of an improvement that it could get designed into some major product lines. Then the customer would not have to choose, it would just be a standard feature. The volumes could be significant - enough that ramping production may be a strain for Kopin. One customer is already on board; if several others follow, that will be all Kopin can handle regardless of what MOT does in the cellphone market. Then, except for the contractual obligation, they will be at the back of the line.
Will
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