This is IMO great news. Very surprising in a good way, though of course, as expected, Agora users downplay and spin the worst interpretation possible.

I believe ALL of Laurie's wished-for outcomes have been realized. Those plus other benefits.

Since, in the PR, CJ is quoted saying "With the recent addition of Arocklyaswamy (Swamy) Venkidu as my new counterpart on the PDS Management Committee, I'm looking forward to a renewed and productive working relationship at PDS," there is IMO no other way to interpret this as saying DL is no longer there. He has been replaced by Swamy. This is huge leverage going forward. "Counterpart" is singular.

Swamy represents Core Flash interests? Unless PDS has somehow acquired TPL's interests in Core Flash, this isn't really true. Swamy represents the Creditors interests, meaning their pursuit of licensing of the MMP so that TPL gains funds with which to reimburse those creditors (including his company) effectively and ASAP.

IMO, it's pretty obvious that Swamy was selected by the Creditors, and the Judge blessed the selection. Of the creditors available for selection, was there a better choice? I doubt it. Swamy should be business savvy, and should understand the value of the MMP tech. This should translate to holding out for respectable licensing fees IMO.

A second Licensing Agent (LC)? This is great! The clock is ticking, and there are a lot of targets to hit (Notices). We need as many resources dedicated to this effort as possible. This helps. And the inevitable competition between Alliacense and the new LC should do nothing but good. And if Alliacense performance lags behind, we (PDS) have something to point to as a basis for valid criticism.

Incentives based on performance? Let's hope this encompasses as many aspects of performance as possible (process metrics). To have such a thing, PDS will necessarily have to be fully informed as to where we stand currently and going forward. No more blindness, at least for PTSC (which may be, understandably, prohibited from disclosure). This should finally enable PTSC to do effective business planning, with greater knowledge of what's in the pipeline. etc.

IMO. this agreement appears to be the best possible solution. Would I prefer that Alliacense were just removed from the picture? Yes. But with that would come a lot of potential negative damage. Data retrieval on all WIP at Alliacense. With a disgruntled entity holding that data, it would be difficult to act fast enough to stop Alliacense from holding down the delete key and destroying data if they see the game is about to be over for them. That concern is avoided. Hopefully the data will be shared with the new LC (it would pretty much have to be to avoid redundant effort by either LC, which would benefit no one).

Agreed, we don't know what this actually cost us monetarily. PDS "owed" money to Alliacense since my understanding is that PDS stopped making distributions (per the prior agreement) some time ago. So I suspect there was the threat of a law suit initiated by Alliacense against PDS. This is also avoided (the last thing we needed was still more litigation, and the additional legal expense, especially against our LC - causing further delays in action to license).

The bottom line is that licensing can, and very likely will, resume. Without that, we had next to nothing. Now we may just having something worthy of our investment. I'm betting we do.

FWIW,

SGE