I have not had any follow-up interviews with current members of Poet's management or executive team.

I do still hold stock in the company and have added more since publishing my article in the Globe & Mail.

I do believe significant news is near, because legitimate companies do not release advertisements such as what Poet unveiled recently without backing it up with supporting facts. However, I don't think news will come this week. There may still be stakeholders who have not exercised their Feb. 15 warrants and releasing news that would propel the stock upward would not be fair to those who already have exercised their warrants. (If you financed your purchase of 100 shares at $75 by selling 60 shares at $1.25, you would not be happy if the company released news that resulted in other warrant-holders being able to make that same 100-share purchase at a lower cost to their position.) I think news will come on Feb. 18, give or take a day.

From what I know from Bay Street, the company is talking to fund managers representing U.S. financial institutions. That isn't unusual. As an example of what junior, pre-revenue companies go through, I had a conversation last week with the CEO of a company in a similar position to Poet, in terms of their stock-market situation. The CEO is having meetings upon meetings with fund managers, trying to convince them to invest in his company to help get him off of the OTC board in the U.S. and onto the Nasdaq. They all tell him the same thing: Good story, good product, but they can't go near the OTC stocks because of rules within their companies. His stock is less than $1/share, but has been valued at above $40/share. His company's stock is in the grips of short traders who bounce it up and down at their whim, and he can't do anything about it but continue to forge ahead with his product to inch it toward monetization. Should sound familiar.

I do read this message board.

I do also read the "other" message board, but only after one user in particular prompts me to take a look at some statement of "slander" and asks me to "do something" about it. By doing something, I think he means write an article in a national newspaper condemning the actions of the board and use the Freedom of Information Act to expose the anonymous critics. That's a non-story. It's the Internet and people can do and say what they want with little consequence, unless the affected company decides to get its lawyers involved. The only time I raised a question with Stockhouse was about a week or two ago when a post libelling Lee Shepherd and his wife appeared. It was taken down after I asked why Stockhouse wouldn't moderate its board for such ugly statements.

The one line in my article from the Globe that I think has the most resonance is this one: "persuading large businesses – let alone entire industries – to alter course is a gargantuan undertaking."

No one should be surprised if the adoption of Poet is achingly slow. There are many fundamental and economic reasons why established corporations would not want to alter course. Poet has three great benefits in its favour:

- The indisputable fact that Moore's law is coming to an end; industry needs a post-silicon solution and Poet appears to be a viable one.

- The technology. It was not created as an academic experiment or a laboratory challenge. Poet was meant to be a business solution. The adaptability of its process to go from POET to including PET and to scale down to desired 40nm specifications demonstrates its flexibility to meet commercial applications, not solve academic problems. The IP protection surrounding the tech is also a key component of its value.

- Most importantly, Ajit Manocha. This technology is quite likely dangerous (because of whose interests it threatens and how much power it gives to whomever controls it). Manocha's connections with the executive branch of the U.S. government and the leading businesses who figure to win or lose from a post-silicon solution should help the company navigate through tricky currents — if it is indeed "changing the very foundation of electronics."

Similarly, I think Poet has three big detriments:

- Pinetree -- its involvement and the uncertainty of its future raises a gigantic red flag for any money managers

- Competition. No great technological change occurs in a vacuum. Well-funded companies around the world are working on a post-silicon solution. Many of those companies truly are in stealth mode. There is a race going on and no one really knows who's in the lead.

- Marketing. The company hasn't shown it can market or promote itself. The TV ad is nice but there should be information on its website to effectively answer the most immediate questions a viewer would have when seeing the ad. As far as I know, there's no advertising agency, or marketing or communications department. The absence of those units makes me think the company is still pursuing a sale.

Hope that helps!