The annual bleating

It's time once again for Research Frontiers to perform its obligations to its loyal shareholder base. No, not produce profits for them or give them useful insight into the company's inner workings (the latter inevitably induces the image of a gerbil in an exercise wheel), but rather the annual suck-up fest and blue-sky session of what might be, if management were ever inclined to do something to make any of it happen.

Welcome to the regulatorily-required Annual Shareholder Meeting.

By way of a preview of Thursday's big event, let's review the 2002 edition of the fleecing, er, meeting.

"[P]lans to foster sales of SPD-Smart™ products by having SPD demonstration products made in large quantities." We're actually off to a good start in terms of accuracy in reporting. The demo products were certainly churned out over the following couple of years. The whole "foster sales" part didn't quite pan out, mind you, but give them a star for effort.

"For example, last week Research Frontiers was featured on The Money Pit, a radio program which is carried by over 100 stations in 38 states. This week, Research Frontiers’ smart window technology is appearing on a home improvement television segment expected to be seen by over 14 million viewers." And so successful were those promotional efforts, that nobody has spoken of them since. That's something, coming from the group that still tries to recycle the Extreme Makeover debacle.

"The SPD Product Demonstration Kit ("PDK") was presented at the Annual Meeting." And went to be the runaway best-seller in the SPD industry. I'm reminded of an old story about a trick deck of cards. The seller gave an impressive minute-long sales pitch about the wonders of the deck. When the buyer got home with his deck, however, he found he could replicate the sales pitch, but that was it -- the deck was useful for nothing else. The only thing it was good for was to sell to someone else. The SPD PDK works much along the same principle. (See the lower right corner of this page to see a PDK in "action".)

"The larger SPD In-Store Display will also be produced." Rumor has it these exist, but, much as with Bigfoot, no one has ever produced photographic evidence.

"This is a highly visual technology. It’s very simple - seeing is believing." Just don't try to go beyond what you see, and you'll be quite a contented believer in SPD technology.

InspecTech Aero Service, licensed to offer SPD-Smart aircraft cabin windows, unveiled a new, portable SPD aircraft window display at Research Frontiers’ Annual Meeting. They got a lot of mileage out of this, taking it to shows all over the place, and promoting the display's presence as proof of interest by some huge company or other. Of course, nothing ever came of it, but it's the short-term hype that counts, right?

ThermoView Industries, Inc. Enough said right there. That whole business proved to be a big nothing, unless you count opportunities to sell stock.

SPD Inc. Ditto, though they had a good run of ultimately unproductive promotion before folding.

"In his address to shareholders, Robert L. Saxe gave an overview of the Company’s progress and reconfirmed that based upon projections given to Research Frontiers by several of its licensees, it was a reasonable goal to expect the Company to have its first full year of profitability in 2003." This was in fact not so much a "reconfirmation" as it was a stepping-back from the previous status of "projecting" profitability by the fourth quarter of 2002 and the full year of 2003. This little switcheroo allowed the promotional effort to later claim that management never promised anything with respect to profitability. Of course, we know what really happened.

Finally, note the "demonstration" at the bottom of the page. Notice anything funny? Yes, the room appears to get darker after the glass goes dark, but... look at the floor! It still reflects a bright day outside.

Just one more example from a company that can't seem to do anything right. We'll see what they try to come up with at Thursday's meeting.