I'm somewhat perplexed at your statement. From all I've read, and not just on here and not just about LQMT, there is a global thought process and regional thought process. I'm confused about why you would see this as strictly a manufacturing play? Maybe from years of being in the defeated mindset of previous management.
From all that I understand, this is a royalty play. A cash flow machine. To burden the company with the thought of being the 'manufacturer to the world' of LiquidMetal, would be to miss the forest because you got stuck looking at one tree.
What I thought was the vision going forward is to have manufacturers 'in house' production wherever possible. The next stage will hopefully be 'regional dealerships' or 'manufacturing centres of excellence'. Similar to the one in Lake Forest. Company owned or partnered. Preferably partnered. Leave the headaches to others.
Not just in the US, but think globally.
Ask yourself a question: If steeI were a new product, and I owned the patent on the process of making steel, would I want to try to be the only manufacturer in the world?
Hell no. I want everyone using steel as soon as possible. (And please, don't get stuck on the word 'steel')
So you would want a lot of people making steel and there's only one way to make that happen. That's by designing the business model you want and then by getting your product to market as rapidly as possible. Don't bog the company down with huge production headaches.
In a perfect world, 10 or 20 years from now. Maybe they could follow the business model of Xerox and flood the market with machines upon which they charge a volumetric 'per click' royalty.
Lqmt first priority should be to focus on developing the market place. Not manufacturing the product.
The second priority should be R&D on product materials and production processes.
The cheaper they make it to get this product into the market, then the larger the volumes produced will be.
To want Lake Forest to be the workhorse that churns the cash flow for this company, to me, is to doom this company to mediocrity.
I don't think that Prof Li is a regional thinker. I think you might be missing out on a larger vision.
