Hey Dio,
Thank you for the detailed response.
You’re a valued contributor here on a technical front, and I appreciate your input.
I’m not sure I appreciate your consideration of me being a “Cassandra“. I don’t think it’s fair to play this off as an emotional post, as would stand by it even if the SP shot off to $5 on open tomorrow.
Starting with your 4 questions:
a response to Q1 would be the sort of thing for which the ASX would demand further and better particulars, which would put us in conflict with all the NDAs, a la Ford;
I‘m pleased you brought this up. Are we still engaged with Ford? It’s been over three years now (25/5/2020) since Brainchip announced that Ford were ”evaluating“ Akida and since then we have heard nothing. This is my point Dio, there is no transparency. Is three years‘ an unreasonable duration of time for a shareholder update? I think not. For all we know, Ford have gone quiet and the company have decided not to disclose it due to a technicality - perhaps they never formally terminated the agreement. I’m not saying this has happened, but it’s certainly plausible after this duration.
Similarly for Q2;
Q3 is reasonable, but I think this has been answered with the degree of specificity allowable under the NDAs - automotive, health, mechanical maintenance, aerospace, ... . As I said 5 years ago, it would be easier to list the areas where Akida cannot be used (it's a very short list).
It hasn’t been answered at all. The company have alluded to working with these sectors. And to state it’s easier to state where Akida cannot be used is besides the point. I understand the use-cases are practically infinite, but that doesn’t mean we are engaged with infinite “customers”, and nobody knows, as we aren’t updated of any specifics.
Q4, see Q1.
Taking your example of mobile phones, the development cycle is several years, so, while we missed the recent releases and those shortly upcoming, there is nothing to suggest we are not being considered for future releases. Our association with Prophesee gives us a strong link into the process, especially given Synsense's admission of its low level applicability.
There is nothing to support that we are being considered for future releases either. Absolutely nothing.
The fact is that Brainchip hasn’t mentioned the EAP is a very long time. Nothing about the participants, nothing about progress, nothing about the potential. Simply nothing. Woulds, coulds, and maybes won’t change this. The company needs to update the market on the status of this program without breaking contractual obligations. It shouldn’t be hard, they’ve have years to figure this out, unless of course there’s nothing to update?
Remember BRN is on a steep learning curve. We need to discover what our customers need, and they don't know because they don't know how revolutionary Akida is. Last year we were talking about the recently invented LSTM functionality for "attention", and now we have bypassed that for ViT/TeNNs in Akida 2. This is not to say Akida 1 is obsolete. We have developed Akida 1500, which is Akida 1 el cheapo, or at least stripped of the ARM Cortex processor, available from 2 nodes (8 NPUs ) up to 20 nodes, whether you want an always-on wake-word watching device, a vibration monitor, or a full video processing chip.
The IP licensing business is a long haul project, much longer than selling chips. - If I recall correctly, Renesas came out of nowhere, the company were surprised by this licensing agreement, so I find your argument weak here. It’s been years since our last licensing agreement, and the Company itself has admitted that this is taking longer than expected, and that was a while ago! Where are they??? Why aren’t they licensing a groundbreaking innovation like Akida???
You know that Renesas and Megachips are bringing out processors incorporating Akida 1. Renesas has its own in-house DRP-AI but has found applications where Akida is more relevant.
I find it encouraging to remember:
Prophesee loves us; Where is the licence?
nViso loves us; Where is the licence?
NASA is a fan;
Mercedes is impressed; Why isn’t it in their cars, and licensed?
Valeo is a partner; Where is the licence?
we are compatible with all ARM processors; Then why hasn’t anyone licensed it?
SiFive, ARM's up and coming rival, is also a partner; Where is the licence?
...My intention isn’t to be objective for the sake of being objective. The point is it’s all hearsay until someone signs and we generate revenue, for some reason that hasn’t happened, and I want to know what the feedback is as to why that is.
We cannot survive on partnerships, we aren’t a university or a funded research centre, we are a company that needs revenue and answers to shareholders.
It is true that the company has had a few major business model changes, and this has inevitably shifted expectations. We've been a software company, a chip company, and now an IP licensing company. Software provides only a pale shadow of Akida's capabilities. Chips would have produced a quicker return, but again, without maximizing the benefits of the Akida design. Would we produce different sizes for different applications. Putting all our eggs in the IP licensing basket makes it a harder sell because of the up-front costs to the customer. But I am trusting that the superior performance of Akida will win over customers like Mercedes, and partners like Prophesee and SiFive, and marquee clients like NASA/DoD/DoE (DOE - that's right, we do do cybresecurity too).
We don’t do cyber secunity. We currently do nothing. We currently have our IP in zero products. This is a fact Dio. As evident by the lack of revenue. Why???
I’m not saying we’ve failed yet, I believe the tech is strong, but for some reason people aren’t buying it, and I’d like to see some detail as to why.
The SP is down now, but within a few (short?) months ...
Come on mate, we’ve been in a death spiral for 30 months!
