RE: Backbone ArticleI certainly didn't mean to mislead in regards to Ayran Strand and the article. Assuming can get you into trouble. The article was not dated on the internet and Aryan Strand has been missing for some time from Sustainable. Looking at the Backbone link, I now see 050508 in the link string. I am still trying to grasp Strand's role. It seems to be ambiguous.
As far as I can see, Aryan Strand is or was an employee of Westlink, a development and marketing company. He did a two year internship with Westlink and part of his internship appears to have been with Sustainable. He appeared a couple of times in email releases and more importantly appeared on Sustainable's website up to, I believe mid 2007 as the contact for information on the products right on the website brochures. The website product brochures were then revamped to exclude his name and contact information and still it does not refer to him. I believe that took place sometime in early to mid 2007 about the time that he graduated from his internship. That indicated to me that he was no longer with the company. It appears that Michael Carten took over that role and many other hats in a cost saving plan.
Has the company hired him back or Westlink as their marketing agent? Perhaps someone has more info. I seems very strange to just have this article appear out of the blue with no press release from the company or mention by Carten in a Corporate update of North American marketing. Carten has been handling all press contact for some time now.
Not a very positive approach to a release of what could be a major exposure in marketing development. Backbone Magazine? Home Depot is a big name market distributor for North America and this leads to exposure in many of the solar friendly states and a massive market. The only mention of a North America market has been the bundling of the product with the Zephyr wind turbine for sales in North America and Carten made mention of problems with that in one of his updates. There has not been any mention of rooftop home bundling here. In fact Carten mentions that home bundling is not his approach in Europe as it does not fully make use of the benefits of the product. Commercial bundling, thin film and concentrators is what he is chasing according to all of his statements.
Perhaps that is changing to get more exposure and earnings. My hope is that if this article is factual, although perplexing, they are going to bundle with DFE. A great company with a fabulous product that they are already involved with in the 3 government sponsored building projects in Canada along with Solar Wall. That is if these projects are still going ahead. There has been no mention of them since last year.
An enigma of a company but one that could be very rewarding if they can get their act together. That may be happening sooner than later. Here's hoping. Good luck to us longs. We deserve it.