NorthernTrader: Brad said his initial thoughts were to have eight or nine different entities testing the prototype in its first release (obviously no shortage of interested parties) but at this point they won't be able to do that.
I guess that I am a little surprised that more people are not upset about this. The hardware costs indeed are minimal. The board shown at the SHM appears to be a typical off-the-shelf FPGA prototyping board, costing a couple of hundred dollars. The FPGA chips, even 3MM gate chips, are tens of dollars each. While there is a fairly hefty charge up front for the specialized software needed, NVEI surely has already purchased it, or they could not make even one prototype. So, the hardware costs are not substantial. That only leaves people as the big cost, and I suppose that is the big unknown here. Does it take one or more engineer to be dedicated full-time to each prototype evaluation? Who knows. Frankly, I don't care. This company has spent years and millions developing this technology. There have been numerous private-placement actions that were dubious at best, but they did raise money. Now, when all indications are that a prototype product is complete, they cannot seem to raise enough money to get a sample into the hands of key potential customers. I am sure that most shareholders would be willing to endure just a bit more dilution in order to get the product to the customer. Shoot, I don't even care if the shares are discounted 75%, like they have been in the past. My point is that if there ever was a time that it was absolutely necessary to raise money, it should be now.
