Hi jubinst,

First off, the answer to your main question is no, POET hasn’t been fully validated by BAE for their IR detector.

I don’t think the other parts of your question (the why? and what now?) can be answered fully unless the chronology of events occurring between the 2011 AGM and now is taken into account.

We have to remember that OPEL was the victim of a solar implosion which wiped out any possibility that POET could be independently funded.At the same time SBIR funding was halted.The effects of this on continued POET development can’t be understated.Taylor himself described it as being “starved”.Anything we were told at the 2011 AGM was almost immediately put on hold while OPEL tried to keep the solar side of the business on life support.

Furthermore, OPEL was very badly managed during this 2 prong crisis.Sheldon saw this and started dumping all his shares.Peralta quit as independent director and gave up all his options to make a statement.Middleton quit.There were 3 LOCs – the last of which had our POET IP as collateral. Drastic measures had to be taken to right the ship.

Enter IBK, followed by Copetti, Benadiba and Peralta.Things started to look better, but Taylor and team were still starving a year later – virtually no work had been done on POET since the 2011 AGM.It took 2 PPs and purging of most of the old regime to get us debt free, slimmed down and focussed on POET.

Since the beginning of this year things have been moving at a furiously fast pace.If we could ignore the year between Q4 2011 and Q4 2012 we wouldn’t be in bad shape at all.Of course even if this timeframe could be erased from our memory we would still be scratching our head about the SP.We still bear the scars of this lost year.

Also, as you mentioned, we still don’t have the US investors clamouring to get our shares.I think it’s going to take the completion of at least MS7 before we start to see any reaction from BAE.But any interest in licensing or a buyout by a major chip or device manufacturer and we’re off to the races on both fronts IMO.I don’t think it will be a momentum play when the validation takes place because I think a license deal will follow on the heels of the MS7 announcement which will instantly transform POET into a money making operation.A new valuation will be placed on POET by the market which will weigh the validation of the technology, the value of the licensing deal and the prospect of future licensing based on the merits of the technology itself.It will be new money that makes that valuation, IMO.

My theory is that the SSC was formed at this point in time because experienced people were required to consider offers in the military arena.Boeing wanted to be apprised of when POET was at the magic TRL number, and BAE wanted the heads up 6 months prior.I’d say we are in the sweet spot right now.