Syndiant Spotlight

CES 2010 - What a Show!
By Mark Harward, Syndiant CEO
January 20, 2009

January is an exciting time for those of us in the Consumer Electronics industry. Companies from all over the world work very hard to prepare their new technologies and products for demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It is a great opportunity for companies such as Syndiant to get to meet with analysts, journalists, present customers, prospective customers, suppliers and value chain partners. Not counting unscheduled meetings, Syndiant had a very productive show with more than 50 meetings in 3 days.

We are very proud to be the industry leader in providing high resolution pico projectors panels, and we are rapidly forging a path to true HD pico projectors enabled by our breakthrough VueG8TM technology. The best way to emphasize our leadership, superior resolution and image quality was to demonstrate a projector with our SYL2041 simultaneously against other pico projectors display technologies. As you can see in the photos, our technology is more advanced, and we know consumers are not going to spend their hard-earned money on pico projectors that provide obsolete, 25 year old display resolutions.

Further proof of our leadership, at CES Foryou Multimedia with their development partner Astri demonstrated the world’s first pico projector to provide 1024x600 (Wide SVGA) resolution. This was made possible by Syndiant’s SYL2061 panel – the world’s only pico projector panel to support this resolution.

While we didn’t announce it until after returning from CES, we had a working SSTDC’s Laseno SEE100 Smartphone optical engine, which at 7.3 cc is the world’s smallest embedded pico projector to provide SVGA resolution which uses Syndiant’s SYL2010 imager panel. With innovative laser illumination, it provides great color and efficiency (10 Lm at 1.4 Watt) and it is focus-free.

While on the subject of laser projectors, our CTO, Karl Guttag, was published in the January 2010 issue of Laser Focus World. His article, “Laser-LCOS microdisplays make for tiny, low-cost pico projectors” is available on-line here.

January has indeed been an exciting time in consumer electronics. For Syndiant, 2010 promises to be an amazing year for us and the pico projector market. We are gaining significant customer traction and will be able to share more news with you in the coming months.

Carry a Personal Cinema Experience in My Briefcase!
By Mark Harward, Syndiant CEO
November 14, 2009

As I write this, I am on an extended Asian tour to work with our many customers and supply chain partners. Presently I’m in Japan – a country I always enjoy visiting. However, a bad part of business travel for serious sports fans is missing important ball games such as last Sunday’s Cowboys vs. Eagles game in the great and historic city of Philadelphia. Cowboy fans were still stinging from the Eagle’s 44-6 demolishing of the Cowboys to end their season last year. With both teams coming into the game at 5-2, the game was important to determine the division leader and likely impact playoff hopes.

So, how to watch it? A significant problem is that Japan is 13 hours ahead of Dallas, so the Sunday night 6PM (CST) game would start at 7AM Monday morning in Japan, just when I had to be jumping on the train but then I had a solution:

1. At home I have a Slingbox media player connected to my Digital Video Recorder and to the Internet. Obviously a fan will have the game set to record.
2. I wanted a bigger experience than watching the game on my small laptop screen, so I got out the Syndiant pico projector that I was demonstrating to customers and connected it to the video output of my laptop (Don’t worry - our mission is to soon make these affordable and available for everyone to buy one). So now I had a 60+ inch projected image.
3. I carry a set of speakers (in the foreground of the picture) with me when I travel to get a bigger sound and experience and the freedom to move around and this complemented the big screen experience.
4. Fortunately for Cowboy fans, the Cowboys prevailed in a very good game 20-16.

Slingbox is a trademark of Sling Media, Inc.

To Restart the Economic Engine - the Key is Innovation
By Mark Harward, Syndiant CEO
June 26, 2009

What actions are needed to return our country to healthy economic growth? One must first understand that new small businesses are the primary engine of job creation according to the Census Bureau's Business Dynamic Statistics⁽¹⁾. These new businesses are also the primary developers of innovative ideas and products. The key challenge facing today's small tech companies is to secure the financing to commercialize the innovations that drive job growth.

Forbes magazine recent article "Venture Capital's Coming Collapse" makes it clear that depending on the present model for VC based finance is not a recipe for success⁽²⁾. The fact that there has not been a single tech company Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the past two quarters (and only two U.S. IPOs in that period)⁽³⁾ shows clearly that equity markets do not presently hold the solution to companies seeking growth capital or provide a monetization path for VCs seeking a solid return on investment. The lack of an IPO market also provides a dual disadvantage to tech companies by suppressing valuations in the merger and acquisition arena.

Clearly any long-term solution to returning our ability to fund innovative companies must re-enable technology companies to be able to exit with an IPO. As in any challenging problem, one expects to find multiple and interdependent causal factors. The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA.org) recently released a set of four recommendations to return the capital markets back to a functional state⁽⁴⁾, much of which address unintended consequences that resulted from reform legislation of the last decade.

1. Encourage a healthy ecosystem of investment banks and accounting firms that can assist in the IPO process.
2. Fix the broken distribution system that connects sellers and buyers of new stock issues.
• The lack of analysts following small cap companies makes it less likely for investors to purchase their stock. The 2001 stock price decimalization is an important factor as it lowered the profitability of market makers forcing the curtailment of providing institutional research on small companies⁽⁵⁾.
• Excessive post-IPO stock price volatility needs to be addressed. The propensity of hedge funds to rapidly buy and sell stocks is one cause. The NVCA proposes private market platforms that connect qualified pre-IPO companies with prescreened investors who commit to buy and hold these stocks.
3. U.S. tax structure needs to foster capital formation and reward long-term investment. Congress could adopt new tax incentives to stimulate IPOs and use a capital gains tax rate that is globally competitive and is meaningfully different from the ordinary income rate.
4. Regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Global Settlement, and Reg FD intended for larger multi-national corporations have had unintended consequences as compliance to one-size-fits-all regulations is prohibitively expensive for small companies. Regulation to protect investors is certainly necessary, but an SEC review of regulations which have so adversely affected small cap companies is needed.

While the federal government took actions in the past decade that have lowered our nation's ability to fund the innovative companies that grow our economy and job base, there are bright spots. In 2005, the State of Texas had the vision to create the Emerging Technology Fund⁽⁶⁾ that in the words of Governor Perry is "...bringing the best scientists and researchers to Texas, attracting high-tech jobs and helping start-up companies get off the ground faster." The ETF was reauthorized in 2007 and again during the 2009 session with $203.5 million for the 2010-2011 biennium. A 17-member advisory committee of high-tech leaders, entrepreneurs and research experts carefully scrutinize Texas company applicants and recommends funding allocations to the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House.⁽⁷⁾

Excellent opportunities exist for investors frustrated by an average yield of 0.2 percent in the $3.8 trillion dollars⁽⁸⁾ parked in money market funds and a negative return for this decade in the stock markets. The best time to grow a small company is during a recessionary economy because of the availability of talent and lowered cost of virtually everything needed for growth. Furthermore, the increased discipline required of management and sales teams during difficult times forces the construction of a solid foundation in a survival of the fittest natural selection. Motivated investors could look at those companies who have passed the ETF's rigorous due diligence process.

Syndiant, Inc., is proud to be a Texas-based technology company which has developed a comprehensive product family to satisfy a complete range of pico projector applications from low-cost embedded cell phone projectors, to very bright high resolution laptop and gaming accessory projectors that fit in a shirt pocket. We deeply appreciate the recently announced ETF technology commercialization investment and look forward to providing a healthy return to our great state.

References:
1) http://www.ces.census.gov/docs/bds/bds_paper_CAED_may2008_dec2.pdf See Figure 15.

2) http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0112/066.html

3) http://www.ipohome.com/IPOHome/Review/1Q09main.aspx

4) http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=427&Itemid=93

5) http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-19-07/s71907-1411b.pdf

6) www.emergingtechfund.com

7) http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090430-723954.html (Subscription required)

8) http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090430-723954.html (Subscription required)