Partnership is a precusor, or cursor, to a license deal. Poet would work with the partner and possibly a chip designer to create solutions for the desired use cases.

Signing on a partner does not mean dillusion. Think of intel working with dell or hp. All very good and positive...little downside.

A pda does not limit the signings to many more partners, provided there is no exclusivity....see ARM which has hundreds of partners (essentially customers).

A pda who wanted to license POET (p would generally not sign a pda if they did not want to license) would likly need to provide POET a lump sum up front to begin making poet chips.

The first pda is quite important as it can set the t+c tone for others down the road.