Tom Joad....great points. I had been thinking more of how financial metrics would be the "marker." Seems a bit early for financial metrics given the stage the company is in. But the other things you mentioned like looking at the history/quality of the management team etc....makes a lot of sense in terms of thinking about where this company might go.
Looking at the patents also makes a lot of sense. However, as a non-techi I would not be in a position to assess the actual value of the patents that have Pyro name on them. Assume they are visiting their prospects and prospects are not coming to Montreal.
An additional point.
On the Arcam Board a number of folks posted info on job openings. After reading your post, I went to the Pyro site and I saw only a few job openings. Seemed about the number of posts needed to fill natural turnover. Obvious question....If management believes they will soon be seeing lots of orders across their business wouldn't we expect to see more job openings. Does not mean anything definitive, but something to watch.
One marker that gives me a degree of faith is the fact that 1) The US Navy feels that Pyro is good enough to put in their 4 billion dollar aircraft carriers. If that is not a sign of best-of-breed (at least with respect to this aspect of their technology), then I don't know what is.
Another marker for me is the agreement they have with HPQ silicon to develop the process for extracting silicon from quartz. Presumably, HPQ could have gone to any other company in the plasma space and entered into an agreement with them. However, HPQ chose PYRO to develop the technology ... and fronted the cost. Another sign of best of breed.
All of this aside..that did look like a pretty drab looking facility from the google site. For the moment will just hope and trust that Pyrogenesis is really focused and good at keeping down costs in order to create share-holder value.
