Heya

Hey everyone,

It's been a little while since I've had a chance to sit down and write something in my own voice for the blog. Things have been busy, to say the least. Last Friday, my daughter Leilani was born. She's really beautiful and both she and her mom are doing great.

Bringing a new life into the world is an amazing thing. Holding this little girl, who's minutes and then days old, I get a pretty overwhelming feeling. I can sense that although she's too small to do too much of anything except sleep and eat, her life force is just as strong as anybody's. I can sense the world of possiblities for her.

By the time she's my age, it will be 2037. It's pretty well accepted that the world of the 2030s will bear as much resemblance to today as today does to, say, the 1800s. That's the way it goes with exponential growth and progress. Living through it, it doesn't seem like much as it's happening. But along the way, if you pay attention to the signs, you can really feel that we are caught up in a headlong rush of change.

And of course, this force of nature will provide the macro scale pull that will drive Microvision displays into pervasiveness. As technology becomes faster, smaller, smarter and more capable, the interface to connect people to that technology necessarily needs to change in order to keep up. We have been stuck with the 2" LCD screen since the beginning of the mobile phone era as the dominant visual interface for mobile communications. As the slides in the Corporate Overview presentation below illustrate, mobile communications are becoming increasingly visual in nature; new applications like mobile TV, 3D gaming, location-based services (which will become augmented reality services over the next few years) will all drive the OEMs and service providers to seek out a next-generation interface to their devices. This new interface will then unlock the profit potential of their devices and networks by allowing the big experience of multimedia to come through these ever-smaller and more portable and personal devices.

So, it's pretty exciting. The other thing that's exciting is what's actually happening inside Microvision. The management change, which has been described as 'the best thing that ever could have happened to the company' (a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with), has brought 4 distinguished GE executives into the company. A wholesale change of corporate culture is going on, from 'scientific workshop' to full on product development company -- driven by a total focus on creating value-added display and imaging solutions that solve real world problems.

In 2006, the company's focused on developing the IPM, which Tokman believes will become an indispensable visual subsystem for devices that display electronic media. The IPM is a micro-miniature platform that will be modular such that it can be rapidly integrated with a variety of components to meet new product specifications. The days of Microvision displays being built in a 'monolithic block' are over forever. Every display and imaging subsystem and device the company builds will be modular, scalable, and extensible to a variety of configurations.

If Tokman is right about where the IPM is headed, then the intellectual property owned by this company is worth an order of magnitude more than its current selling price. I believe that he is right and that the focus and operating discipline that is the hallmark of GE leadership will bring Tokman's vision into reality.

So, bringing this back to my little girl. When I see her, I just smile and my heart lights up. I don't worry about the stock or the stock market. It's an unshakeable feeling, of protectiveness and love. Like I'm just so eager to see her grow up and learn all the things she's going to learn. But I also don't want it to go by too fast. Our little boy is now 2 1/2 and his 'rate of change' is accelerating too. It's amazing to watch.

I think in a few years, we'll all be astonished at how fast Microvision has grown, all the things they're capable of now, and how far they have come. Whether or not it feels like the time has just flown by will probably be different for each of us. But the time will pass and the Microvision of 2010 will be there for us when we get there. In the meantime, there's a lot of hard work to do...so, drink your milk!