Re: Adding
in response to
by
posted on
Dec 20, 2018 09:51AM
Baba, We appear to have a difference in understanding of where POET is today with the optical interposer platform versus where they were with the GaAs platform. I believe your opinion is for the most part driven by the general market response. The companies I spoke of the other day continue to hit new 52 week lows. POET is not.
I am sure you are correct in your assumption regarding agreements in place that would prevent a hostile takeover with the companies they are dealing with directly.
The one thing to consider is that once companies decide they need to begin using POETs platform it will occur in stages. The suppliers that begin to be displaced will need to fight back by reducing their cost initially but their longer term solution would be to attempt to duplicate the optical interposer or potentially fast track their effort and buy or merge with POET the company that produces them. And I suspect that the companies working directly with POET will have some level of communications (under the table) with their long term suppliers (who they play golf with and receive gifts from…box seats etc.) that there is a new platform that will take market share so be ready for it.
Andec provided this reference from POET management that is worth reviewing:
However - if our development plan first only produces a 100G CWDM, then the "OBTAINABLE" portion of the SAM is smaller. Further - POET will not immediately garner a 100% market share at any customer no matter how competitive we are. The first thing many customers will do is to take our pricing to their existing suppliers and have them match it. I am sure you do it when you are shopping. That is why - having a source of architectural cost disruption is important. We expect our share to grow over time - once we are proven to be a reliable supplier and have the demonstrated ability to scale our supply to the industry demand.
to be realistic the SOM needs to factor in:
Now back to the first point you were making. The SAM presented is correct and represents the total opportunity for TROE (transmit and receive optical engines) across multiple applications at a single customer.
If for example, the only thing you have is a "receive optical engine" - obviously that is a fraction of the SAM. The revenue guidance is a fraction of the SOM - recognizing that we are not yet sampling complete TROE and the qualification time period is NON-ZERO. We have gone to great lengths to discuss the qualification period - it can take anywhere from 6-12 months depending on the application. And thereafter - it will be a ramp - not a step.
Furthermore, it is important to point out that we have NEVER provided hard revenue guidance recently. It was always either revenue potential (which is another way of stating the SAM) or SAM ... that is what is the potential or SAM.
I hope this can be clarified. We as management want to be candid - but our attempts at transparency are often misinterpreted and then expectations are set based on these misinterpretations."
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