Somebody posted a comment that I hadn't given readers any feedback on the events of this week. So, without further ado, here we go:
In less than 5 months since joining the company as President and COO, and less than one month since being elevated to CEO and Director, Tokman has made huge strides to transforming Microvision into a high-performance organization. He is taking highly visible and effective steps to change the culture of the company to become obsessive about customer focus, cross-functional collaboration, quality, execution and shareholder value creation.
Tokman has consolidated the Sales & Marketing organizations and brought in another distinguished GE Healthcare leader to direct the combined organization.
He's created a Global Strategic Marketing and Business Development organization, headed up by Todd McIntyre to 'drive the global platform strategy and focus on applications across all key customer segments worldwide, driving key strategic customer relationships across the globe.'
He's correcting a lack of focus on international opportunities for the company and appointed Steve Willey as President, Marketing and Sales for Asia.
Tokman is demonstrating to Microvision shareholders that he will align our resources with our biggest opportunities. He will listen to the marketplace to find out what customers really need, and then profitably deliver a product that will meet those market needs.
While significantly cutting the company's burn rate and net losses in 2006, Tokman is tripling the R&D budget for the 'Microvision-inside' vision. During 2006, this vision is represented by focus on three products (the MicroHUD, PicoP personal handheld projector and Color Eyewear), and a new development effort on a modular, Integrated Photonics Module (IPM).
I personally believe that the market for wireless Color Eyewear cell phone displays, analogous to the the 'Bluetooth earbud' worn by many cell phone users, is an absolutely huge market. I am delighted that resources are being put to use by the company to evaluate that opportunity and potentially target that market with Microvision's technology.
The Integrated Photonics Module (IPM) could be the most significant part of the whole strategy. Microvision will be designing a modular, flexible platform that would include all of the critical elements of their light-scanning system (electronics, light sources, scanner, optics) in a micro-miniature design that would allow for rapid integration of the platform into various OEM product configurations.
The IPM will be the key to the global platform strategy. With a sufficiently flexible and miniaturized component-based architecture, Microvision will be able to insert the same light-scanning engine into any device with video output, and rapidly swap out electronics or optics components to achieve different capablities as required by the customer.
The Microvision-inside vision is something that MVIS shareholders have been very excited about for several years. Tokman is putting focus and resources behind that vision to accelerate the timelines, and with the development of the IPM, create a core platform that can be embedded and OEMed into mass-market consumer devices that sell hundreds of millions of unit volume annually.
It's compelling. It's tremendously exciting. It's top-tier GE leadership taking the reins of a company with an incredible technology. The opportunities are all there. Now the company's resources will be aligned in the service of the company's new vision: To become an indispensable source for illuminating information.
Indispensable, meaning absolutely necessary; essential. Core to the world as we know it. Mr. Tokman's vision and mission for this company is to change the world as we know it. I'm very, very excited about the new direction of the company and have never been more confident of a bright future for MVIS investors.
My guess is that Microvision will cut a deal with VW/Audi for heads-up displays in 08 model year cars.
ReplyDeleteThis will put Microvision out their on more radar screens and should charge-up some cash flow.
Ben,thanks for the feedback...actually i was thinking of the fact that no reader responses were posted to the reports about events of this week that you posted on the blog, so in a way u had already done what was expected.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading a post on this blog about some Northwestern University students trying to get a Nomad for their research project. I guess promoting univ. projects centred aeround nomad can be a good way of creating compelling applications for the product, especially since students generally are early adopters of most new technologies.