Dear Friends of the POET Appreciation Society,

Yesterday I was involved in commemorating the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo at a service held at St Paul's Cathedral. A mightily impressive occasion it was too.

The occasion left me with no time to read the two excellent articles highlighted by Disco and Rob, yet I was still reminded of POET whilst we sat beneath the great dome of St Pauls. Looking up I could see the Whispering Gallery and hear the strange effect as sound rebounded and was amplified within the dome's chamber. As you know, this effect is used to move light around a POET device as decribed in one of Dr Taylor's patents.

The two articles highlighted demonstrate the complexity of developing IC and hint at the obvious difficulties of managing such complex interelated processes from both technical and industrio economic aspects.

Dr Taylor has created the POET process to neatly fit into this multifaceted jigsaw by retaining much of the manufacturing and process design used in Silicon thereby ensuring that POET has an enhanced opportunity to penetrate the IC market with a seismic shift in the building blocks of the industry his lll/V designs will cause.

My pupose in this post is to praise not only GT's remarkable efforts of 25 years but those of Peter Copetti who with bull dog tenacity, vision and drive has assembled a management team who have the realistic capacity, knowledge, experience and incentive to bring POET to market. He has done this in the full knowledge that greater minds than his were needed for the task but in doings so has salflessly moved the Poet cause forward.

Yesterday I saluted the Iron Duke's generalship that brought 100 years of peace to Europe, today I salute Peter Copetti. He like many good soldiers is in danger of simply fading away, but his generalship will lead to a change whose significance could well have historic consequences on human development by delivering a level of performance in speed and economy in computing that will advance mankind.

The future will tell us his full worth but let's all recognise and salute Peter Copett's part in moving mountains today.

Peter Copetti we salute you.

your appreciative POET friend.

Sulasailor