Howdy POET fans! I've been a lurker on these forums ever since I bought some POET stock last year, and finally felt the urge to throw in 2 cents that aren't actual currency. :-) Anyway, I'm the guy who inserted the Liquidmetal Technologies question in Rainer's Q&A document (thanks Rainer!), and I can't help wondering if that had something to do with this thread starting up...

Liquidmetal Technologies (LQMT) is an Apple horror story because it gave Apple an exclusive license to use its manufacturing process to make products for the consumer electronics market, and everyone got excited over rumors that Apple would use Liquidmetal's process to make the cases of iPhone 6s. That didn't happen, and the rumors that Apple would use Liquidmetal's process to make the iWatch turned out to be false too, so now LQMT is trading for pennies and can't do much about it.

But wait, that's not even the best part!

You know that special dense gold that Apple is using in the $10k version of the iWatch? You know who invented that stuff? An engineer that Apple poached from LQMT! Talk about rubbing salt into their wounds...

So now LQMT has Swatch using it's process to make parts for the Omega Seamaster (how many $4,000 watches do they sell a year?) and recently cut a deal with Miltner Adams to make a tactical knife that will probably cost hundreds of dollars (so it well sell hundreds or thousands of units, not millions), but those two companies are their entire customer base and the knives aren't even available yet. LQMT had been an IP licensing company until Apple screwed it over so now it's trying to reinvent itself as a manufacturer, but that takes time and money, and both of those are running out almost as fast the patience of stockholders.

Like most of you I want POET to realize its potential, but it CAN'T do that if it gets locked up in an overly restrictive deal like LQMT did with Apple. Exclusive deals will probably be necessary and being associated with Apple would obviously lend some serious cachet to the POET name, but POET will have to VERY careful to avoid the trap that's killing LQMT when the bait smells as sweet as an Apple!