Let me clarify a couple things:
--This new machine CAN NOT be for Apple related products. Two green mystery machines are not nearly enough to produce the quantities of anything a whale like Apple requires. Even if they were for tiny proprietary screws such as Jonny Ive has hinted at. Tim Cook saying he wanted to reel Apple manufacturing back to the USA did not mean a trade partner buying a couple machines. Apple is much larger than that.
--(slightly off topic) I found Apple's last earnings call to be funny. It was funny because previously a couple months earlier the GTAT failure cost Apple what?, $500m? A few months pass by and they announce $18B profit in a quarter. Nobody even mentions the GTAT debacle because by comparision, GTAT was that small of an event. Now using proportion, try to figure LQMT into the Apple mix. I can't at this point, LQMT is way too small. There is hope glass-half-full'ers, Read on....
--The empty GTAT Arizona facility left Apple with egg on it's face because of it's prior promises and receiving of state benefits. Apple needs to do something quick. The quickest thing for them to do is use the facility for the iCloud product. Even though Apple just built a nearly exact same facility in North Carolina about a year earlier. It is far easier and cheaper to blueprint Arizona from North Carolina and announce a Grand Opening.
--That being said, that does NOT mean Apple will use all 11 football fields for servers in Arizona. What if they left say 2 football fields empty to lease out to future manufacturers? Because Apple owns the building they still control the comings and goings. Goods are actually manufactured by another company (back to that defer all responsibility thing) but still under tight Apple control. Big WIN for Apple... and the door just opened for LQMT.
--It's my experience that large firms like to collect revenues while deferring any and all responsibility of actually earning them. They also HATE writing checks. Therefore they lease tools, trucks, buildings, and other assets rather than owning them even though it may be at a higher cost down the road. If LQMT were a rational "normal" company they will lease Engle machines and buy the maintenance warranty (just like a company truck). They get to use the machine was though it were theirs and sidestep the responsibility in case the LQMT "accouterments" in the mystery machines aren't really working out as planned. It leaves more money in the bank account. And it opens up more leverage for other things. That's IF LQMT were a rational, normal company....
--I completely agree with your point on Visser. I believe today he is essentially a competitor with inferior machines and process. Barney Visser said he'd rather go play race cars anyway, remember?
--As much as I like the "LQMT is ramping up for something" idea of a new machine, I'm quickly brought back to reality with all the reasons I don't like the LQMT Machine Shoppe. I think fellow posters reading those recently granted patents the past couple days now realize what really needs to happen inside a green mystery machine. It is going to be a very finicky process; on good days. I think the Machine Shoppe is a departure from what LQMT was originally set out to do. LQMT used to be about intellectuals bringing science to the marketplace and furthering research.
--Investors like the Machine Shoppe idea because it makes LQMT accountable for numbers. Numbers that are easily understood and seen. How many pieces were sold? How many contracts this quarter? What's the profit margin? It removes LQMT from the cloaked darkness that they like to burrow in and exposes them on a stage with a single spotlight. It will be interesting how LQMT tries to wiggle out of their new responsibilities. If the past is any indication, wiggling is what I think they will do.
--We all were enthusiastic with the obtaining of the first mystery machine last summer. The amount of products produced to date with that machine? 0 We do know of an existing order of 500 pieces. So, exactly what justifies installing a second machine if the first is unused? Is the second machine any different???
AI
