Lowlights of the summer newsletter

Thanks to N. Dixon for picking these comments out of the Summer Newsletter and making my job a lot easier.

...our licensees have received strong indications that substantial orders for several different markets will be placed ....

Nothing like using a lot of words to say absolutely nothing, eh? If nothing comes of it, it won't be REFR's fault, and it won't be the licensees fault, it'll be the customers' fault for giving false indications as to their interest. Darn them!

Notice, though, how nobody seems to have their orders in now. You'd think that if people really want this stuff there'd be a waiting list or something.

.....prospective customers in the automotive, aircraft and architectural fields for products that will require substantial volumes of SPD film.

That's about as close to mentioning Boeing as the newsletter gets. "Prospective customers", translated, means "people we'll try to sell this stuff to."

.....many successful innovations such as xerography, which is better known as photocopying, have required decades to achieve. These efforts usually require more time, effort and expense to achieve than the entrepreneurs involved originally expected. That has certainly been true in our case as well.

Ah yes, the old chestnut of comparing yourself directly to great success stories of the past. The fact that when you actually examine the details, you don't stack up favorably at all, never matters. Xerography, i.e. the technology behind copying machines of the latter half of the last century, did take a certain amount of time to go from original design to commercialization. However, a cursory look at Xerox's own history page puts paid to the notion that the developments are anything close to similar.

The time from original patent to commercial introduction was seven years, not forty. Furthermore, this was in the 1940's when innovation in general moved a lot slower. And then there was the little matter of World War II going on, which diverted resources away from this kind of development.

Xerox, or Haloid as it was then called, had a very profitable and well-established business in photographic paper going on in tandem with their xerography research. In short, the company was already successful and self-sufficient.

Probably most tellingly, Xerox depending on a single "outside" source, well-funded by Xerox, for development of xerography. Contrast that with REFR, who signs on everyone and anyone it can to be part of the group effort, resulting, at best, in much duplication of effort and competitive distrust. And that's assuming that the licensees are even motivated by the meager incentives REFR can offer to move forward.

The Xerox story is one of several Harary, like Saxe before him, likes to try to draw comparisons with REFR. Others include Microsoft, Edison's light bulb, and Henry Ford's automobile. It's a really sick display, and REFR management ought to be ashamed.

Except, I doubt "shame" is anything they're capable of.

One more:

.....I believe that you have a sound basis on which to be optimistic that a successful commercial introduction of second-generation SPD film will be forthcoming.

And a sound basis on which to dismiss failure as the result of "overoptimism". After all, who can find fault with someone for just being too optimistic?

Besides a realist, I mean.