Worth a Second Look

Here are Mr. Rutkowski's closing comments from the 3Q04 conference call on November 4, 2004:

RICK RUTKOWSKI: Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I mean I think we had some very good questions here. And in particular, you know, I think the theme of, you know, why do we invest, why do we raise capital, to fund the business, why aren't we doing something to reduce costs? The important question to understand the answer to. If, like I say, we see an expanding, and more legitimate, and more real scope of revenue opportunity today than we did a year, two years ago, with respect to both our finished goods activities and our contract OEM product development activities.

I think you'll be able to see evidence of this very soon. As I mentioned, in terms of overall cash burn, the immediate progress we're going to make there is on our contract line and greater contribution, you know, from products in this quarter and next. But I think you'll also see if we can do something to achieve a significant OEM design win perhaps that'll serve to validate the activities that we're engaged in.

We think these are major market opportunities on the order of several $100m year, if we look out a couple of years. And we continue to evaluate those, be critical of those, but also to conclude that these are very real, and that our technology offers compelling advantages that are going to address unmet demand.

So, we're very much looking forward to both of these things really coming together in 2005 in a way that we have not yet seen happen.

And we're working hard to deliver those kinds of outcomes to drive value for you.

And Steve Willey's update calling in from Asia on the same conference call:

STEPHEN WILLEY, PRESIDENT, MVIS: I'll certainly do that. Would be pleased to do that. And I will put a focus on the specific work we're doing in Asia. I'll also note that we have completed our deliverables to Canon as part of the most recent contracts, consistent with some of the new elements of the architecture that Rick had described.

So, I think I'll touch on what we're seeing in the marketplace, the sudden interest, if you will, and why we believe it's happening. What we're seeing is a real increase in tempo of market activity, both from the standpoint of number of companies that are approaching us, approaching Microvision directly, looking for solutions. And the quality of these companies, their size, their industry presence.

And what's more, what we're seeing is a shift from curiosity that certainly was prevalent in the early days to now companies that are approaching us with a clear definition of their needs and clear applications. And an interest over a diversity of applications across all three architectures. And as Rick mentioned, the viewfinder is one architecture or one application of the so-called embedded architecture that we have.

But there are three in total that we are bringing to consumer markets. The second is architecture display, consumer wearable displays with an emphasis on wearable, lightweight, low bulk, low power. And a third architecture for these consumer applications or consumer markets are display engines for large format television, very large format, 60, 70-inch diagonal so-called laser TV applications. So, in summary, we have a tremendous interest suddenly, and we have ongoing discussions with serious partners in all three, across all three categories of architecture.

So, why this sudden and serious interest? We think it's fueled by a number of things. Certainly, there's a growing awareness of Microvision in Asia, perhaps we can call it a critical mass of interest. And in large part I think that from respect, from the work that we have done over the last couple of years, the important work that we have delivered to companies like Canon. So, we are viewed then as providing unique and powerful solution sets to display markets.

The second thing we're seeing in the display industry is that there's been a certain withdrawal as certain key competitors, competitors' suppliers, particularly those with LCD or liquid crystal silicon solutions, Intel and Philips were the most recent. And at Microvision we predicted difficulties the competitors might have with these alternative solutions because they don't hold the key patents and, certainly, the patent portfolio that Microvision does. So, the focus is back on to Microvision bringing a robust IP portfolio to the marketplace.

The third thing, the reason perhaps for this sudden and serious interest are the enabling technologies that are driving the industry.

For example, the aggressive rollout of telecom bandwidth which continues, the 3G, the Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, digital and satellite TV, the cellular handset, et cetera. And that coupled with digital storage, new digital storage solutions, the iPOD like solutions for these new portable media devices, all this is reinforcing Microvision's claim that the standard 2-inch miniature LCD display which is ubiquitous is absolutely a bottleneck, and that the consumer is looking for the functionality of a large laptop screen, but in a form factor of the cellular handset or an iPOD.

And I think that is driving significant interest in our micro display solution. We can't give too much details on these discussions and these activities for obvious reasons, but I certainly can report the trends are very positive. Thanks.