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Gold/Mining/Energy : Global Thermoelectric - SOFC Fuel cells (GLE:TSE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ddl who wrote (5792)	11/21/2002 2:55:19 PM
From: Gulo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6016

IMO, when they say we are prototyping, it means we're at final stage and getting ready to sell. I guess that is the fundamental problem here. To me, prototyping means they're in early stages of getting a product to sell. It is for proof of concept purposes, not for building a commercial product. They're trying to see if they can build a system that works and use the prototypes to identify bugs and limitations. When they have ideas about how to improve performance, they make another generation of prototype. I expect a few more generations before they commit to commercial production (unless they give up / merge/ etc.). To you, prototyping means they're in the final stage. That has given you expectations that have proven unrealistic. You are not alone. The entire fuel cell bubble was a result of unrealistic expectations of thousands of investors. Why are they trying to sell all of a sudden? That is an interesting question. Possible answers could be: 1) Shareholder pressure to make short-term gains. Simply investigating options to "maximize shareholder value" is one way to raise the price/share without actually doing anything. 2) Commercial banker pressure (although I don't know how much pressure they can bring to bear on a company with $100M in the bank) 3) They see a plan for commercialization that is going to take more than $100M, and don't want to dilute at $2.50/share. 4) Enbridge wants more control and is influencing the board. 5) The board has decided to cut their losses now and get what they can for the technology they have before it loses value because someone else beat them to the market in a big way. I don't see a problem with any of these options, as any one of them should give me a double from my average of about $2. -g

To: ddl who wrote (5792)	11/21/2002 6:03:35 PM
From: the Chief	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6016

IMO, when they say we are prototyping, it means we're at final stage and getting ready to sell. When they say we're getting help for production, that means we're looking at production in the very near future as we now know what we need for components No I'm afraid not, if you believed that then you were misled. Prototyping can be in various stages, but none are considered to be anything but an "experiment" or "pre-production prototype until the unit is baselined. All models of the FC in a Co-Gen Form were pre-production prototypes that were not prototypes and were never considered to be prototypes. Once you have pre-prottyped to death and you think you have a pre-production model you then go about baseline the unit. If accepted in regards to performance, safety, efficiency etc etc then you establish that unit as the "baseline" for your "prototype", it becomes the "baselined Prototype for production. It becomes the Production prototype that all others are built and measured against. GLE was never even close to developing a production unit. They are/were still in the early stages of pre- production prototyping. When they figured they would be in production by 2005, that tells you that they felt they could have performance, safety efficiency levles, that would meet the baseline for a viable production unit. Thats all. If thats sounds like "well how do they know! stuff, well when the Navy contracts for a new jet, they ask thesupplier when he can fill the order, if hes says "golley I don't know"! He won't get the contract. So he consults with his experts and they tell him "we should be able to develop a jet that is capable of XXXXX knots and be invisible by 2009 It's all BS anyway, especially when they're talking of selling... for what.... they say there'r near production with at least 4-5 years of money in the bank... Why are they trying to sell all of a sudden? What did they forget to tell us? Why are they trying to sell?...Thats the $101.000.000 question...and GLE isn't talking. PS..How do I know all this? I used to do baselining on pre-production "electronic deliverables"