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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis V. who wrote (5261)	11/17/1998 9:29:00 PM
From: kolo55	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 27311

I agree Dennis. Which is why I would prefer to discuss patent issues with these guys off-line. On a more interesting note; perhaps I could speculate a little on what kind of customers Valence might be pursuing? Lets start with laptops. In one of the summer conference calls, Lev mentioned that 14 different OEMs had gotten samples. He also said that included most of the leading name laptop manufacturers. OK, so if we assume that Li-poly will most likely first be used in high performance (high cost) units, then we might expect the OEMs that sell high perf units to the business community etc. to be at the top of the list. In the US that probably means HP, IBM, Compaq, perhaps Apple or Dell. In Japan, it probably means Toshiba, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, or Sony. I doubt any of the Taiwanese manufacturers would be the first, but maybe Acer. Lets take a long shot here, since we don't know any better, and assume that Valence would go for the highest cost units out there. Certainly the $2.50 Wh pricing implies premium units. My guess (WAG) is they are shooting for the cousin of HAL and probably 1-2 others. This is probably a contrarian pick to most thread participants, since this customer has reputedly the toughest specs and qualification process on the planet. Next lets take cellphones. I think this is easy. Valence has a history of working with Motorola, and Motorola is supposedly shutting down or selling off their Li-poly development unit. Other big manufactureres like Nokia, Ericsson, etc are longer shots. If someone is real familiar with this industry, perhaps they could suggest who might be willing to buy premium batteries for a premium cellphone. The Japanese would likely follow later, but perhaps there is a Korean manufacturer that has close ties to Hanil Telecom. Camcorders Sony, but this market might not be the first attacked. Lev hasn't talked about this market much. Hand-held computing devices The PalmPilot would make an interesting target, and any host of innovative new wireless internet devices. Miscellaneous batteries Valence has had a working relationship with Eveready for a number of years (see references in the 10K). It shouldn't surprise anyone if this relationship blossoms now, and Eveready plays a role packaging and selling consumer or replacement batteries. Military products Another easy one. Alliant. well, that's it for my crystal ball gazing... Be interesting what other folks think. BTW, before I get flamed, this is just based on the flimsiest of info gleaned from the company reports etc. and I have no hard info on any of this. Paul