RE: much betterDon't confuse PB's correctness about the erosion in SMY's share price with the correctness of his analysis. His "reasoning", if I can call it that, has always been extravagant, ridiculous, speculative, exaggerated, defamatory and ultimately contrived and disingenuous. Your suggestion that PB has been correct reminds me of several MB.A. programs, elite programs, that teach courses about bad business strategies that have worked out brilliantly and great business strategies that have gone bad. Well, similarly PB has been right but for all the wrong reasons. And I think it would be a mistake to be dismissive about the importance of the reasons for SMY's stuggle.
PB painted a picture of an inept company, with inept, overpaid, leadership, with inadequate funding and resources, impossibly disadvantaged in competition, etc. Essentially, he told us that with SMY's inevitable demise will come from its internal weaknesses and problems and from its disadvantage viz a viz the competition. The truth is, I would suggest, quite the contrary.
The struggles that SMY has endured have very, very little to do with its merits as a company, its strategies, its technology, its leadership etc. Like all the companies in the sector SMY has struggled because, for a whole host or reasons, the overwhelming number of which are far beyond the control of SMY, RFID has not rolled out as quickly as anticipated. For a small cap start up, this kind of delay does create challenges. In SMY's case it has led to unanticipated dilution and financial constraints which SMY is presently coping with.
Paradoxically, the "down time" resulting from the delay in commercial rollout, also handed SMY some time for reflection, time which apparently it has utilized extremely well. We have been told about what may be very significant new technology developed in the reader area, we know that there has been a restructuing with a new, exprienced, impressive and very appropriate (from the industry) CEO, one with a great track record, we have been told that there has been an expansion of the target applications for SMY readers beyond the distribution chain, and there has been a significant tightening of the reins of expenditure.
No doubt throughout its history, SMY has made some errors but nothing remotely approaching the fatal errors that PB's attributes to SMY, relentlessly and with inescapbable and transparent purpose. In my view, SMY's most serious error was not financing when the stock price was much higher. However, there is probably a strong element of hindsight in this criticism.
I would like it if SMY's share float was smaller and if SMY had more money but I have always liked its technology, which I continue to like and which at this stage of the development of RFID technology is of paramount importance, and I now like the direction of the company more than ever, as well as who is steering the SMY ship. And that includes Cliff. Cliff has some warts but he has positioned SMY extremely well. He has also equipped SMY with some pretty powerful amunition, its technology, its engineering group, the credibility of its products, and the addition of Tom Dziersk to fight the fight that needs to be fought.
PB is a transparently manipulative idiot and most of us have seen through his idiocy. There is always a danger that lay investors don't give negative news and negative analysis sufficient credence but the SMY group of investors who followed this board and gave PB zero credence have been spot on. Unfortantely, the investment strategy of many of us, certainly myself, was far too slow in reacting to the snail's pace at which the commercialization of the RFID industry was progressing. In this regard, while, I don't see anything happening in the next 3 or 4 months, I do think that there are some exciting possibilities just over that 3 to 4 month horizon.