October 31, 2006
Sunshine Returns to ICP Solar
Nothing really more to add than this journalist for the local Montreal Gazette newspaper hasn't said!
Its great to be moving ahead on our business plan with new team members, a new approach to the solar power market, new funding and new partners who understand the distinction between the stuff they were buying before, and the products from ICP Solar they'll now be offering!
Sass
Posted by sass at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2006
Political Plays for Power...
So who exactly owns the rights to the sun or the wind? Is it like the land owned by government (essentially representing all of society)? Should you have total dominion over your land as long as you are not harming a neighbor, or does the government have the right to impose its will for the greater good of society?
This is how I characterize the political debate occurring here in Quebec, as I am sure it has occurred and will occur anywhere the government gets involved in the distribution, creation and allocation of power. This weekend, at a local opposition party's convention, there was a huge stir created over the "ownership" of wind power. Many of the people attending the Parti Quebecois' convention believe that, like hydro, wind power should be nationalized. Unfortunately for them, and quite rightly may I add my two cents, their leader, Andre Boisclair disagreed.
it is part of the culture of Quebec to want to cocoon and have the "parent state" control our "national heritage and values". In so doing, Quebec is one of the lone remaining provinces or states where the ownership of all power for consumption by industry or residents, falls within the mandate and control of a nationalized entity, called Hydro Quebec. Since nationalization of the power industry in our province, there has been little change to the method of generation. An overwhelming percentage of our power comes from hydro, which is interestingly promoted as "clean energy". While I may agree that its generation is clean, I am not sure about the animal and human communities which are dislodged from otherwise peaceful habitats in order to generate that power. Hydro-Quebec clearly positions itself as caring about the environment and has itself begun to install wind power in certain areas under smaller scale to begin with.
Now of course, this brings me to solar power, and how they might attempt to wrest control of solar power as they are trying with wind. Who owns your roof? Who owns your neighbor's? What if your roof could generate the power you needed and even give back to the grid? See where I'm going with this?
Technology of solar power can help to change the realities of politics, and vice versa. We live in a society which is transformed as new technologies enter, and it is up to us to embrace new technologies that serve the general good of our planet and communities. The issue is clearly one of control.
There are "good" reasons for control such as ensuring equity of availability, quality control on the solar power systems installed...and then there are "bad" reasons for control such as preventing a legacy industry from being challenged, control of revenues through old business models that a particular society is unwilling to change, protection of polluting industries due to strong lobbies for oil companies, etc...
The question for our society is...how long do you retain control for "bad" reasons while denying your community the chance to participate in an exercise which benefits all of mankind?
Sass
Posted by sass at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2006
Small chips away at Big..
Just as Seth Godin wrote that "small is the new big", we find now that Mozilla is engaged in an interesting race with Microsoft in the browser category.
A not-for-profit organization manages to do what much bigger ones (Safari, Netscape) have not done with loads of marketing budgets...take 15% market share away from Microsoft! How it was accomplished is a great testament to the "power of the people" when they perceive themselves to be set aside in the great communication age.
Mozilla's new Firefox browser is democracy on the web at its best,capable of posting blogs and with functionality to benefit from the new web2.0 platform. A totally FREE browser, in open-source, that many people have taken the liberty (and their time) to help translate across the world. Its like the "youtube" of software, no charges, no headaches, no renewal notices...just something for FREE!
As this catches on it makes me think of how the solar power world can take up this model and yet still be profitable? If givers gain, how do we do this so that the gospel of solar power can spread as quickly as the gospel of Firefox?
Hmmm...
Sass
Posted by sass at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2006
Solar Power Conference Confirmations....
Just returning from Solar Power Conference 2006 at San Jose this week. The industry is indeed changing..how?
1. Supply is ramping up so quickly that some are facing inventory build-ups mostly because the program uptake in the supply chain can't keep up. For more regarding the siicon shortage, read Neal Dikeman's blog entry of this week.
2. Thin films are not only here to stay but also about to compete on the thick film's backyard with better efficiencies than ever before yet with continued lower costs.
3. The supply contracts that were signed last year with long terms and market adjustment clauses, will see market adjustments without question in 2007.
4. Consolidation is coming. This is an industry which is maturing. Small players will be left to niche markets or face extinction. Eventually they will either have to join up or be squashed. There are too many "solar microchip makers" who don't have gigawatts in sight.
5. A bubble burst in valuations won't continue for much longer as bandwidth and the extensive Spanish and Italian programs begin an uptake in production that will temper the downturn and not permit it to be as drastic as the early 2000's.
6. Going public at this time for ICP Solar was one the best things we could have done. Suddenly people are talking to us in a totaly different manner and with enthusiasm. Amazing what an IPO will do! Money follows money. Specially when its smart money.
7. It's going to be about two models: distinction or commodity. The low cost producers will win the latter. The high value deliverers will occupy the former. There will be little room for anything else.
8. China and India are coming on strong. China is already becoming the low cost producer in the value chain. India is providing lamination services, just like it does in the IT sector.
9. The US market will be exploding with California leading the way. This was the best attended american show in history and almost rivaled its European counterpart in attendance, although not quite in size.
That's all my I can think of for now. If more comes to mind, I'll add more later.
Sass
Posted by sass at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2006
Who is greener..Google or Microsoft?
Seems like these two IT giants are set to battle on yet another front...who is the greener of them all!
Microsoft had previously announced solar installations to help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by its massive use of energy when along comes Google today and announces its own solar energy generation program.
And then we learn that one of the Google billionaires, Sergei Brin, has been using solar power to recharge his mobile phone in London! So it seems that celebrities, industry movers and others are now embracing this technology as it becomes CHIC to be GREEN!
The awareness will simply continue to grow as people of this stature validate the technology as life-enhancing. Adoption however will continue to depend on how we can design products that enhance the customer's life experience rather than interfere with it for the sake of being green.
Sass
Posted by sass at 06:13 AM | Comments (2)
October 13, 2006
Injustice is never Invincible...
Those of the lower castes in India are finding an ingenious way out of the prejudice that is imposed upon them from birth..that of a caste system which determines how high one can go according to one's blood line...they are simply converting out, en masse, out of the Hindhu faith which holds them back into Christianity or Buddhim.
And how are the authorities reacting? By attempting to press down harder by changing the definition of the religions!
The story is simply about injustice. People told what they can or can't be due to their family history. Imagine telling your son "you can never be a Bill Gates, an Einstein or a Nobel Prize winner" simply because your fathers father's father's father wasn't? Is it the role or path we should help our children see or is it the exact opposite.
Injustice comes in many forms. It can be legislated, implied yet in the end it can never be enforced forever. Either the people will revolt or they will simply leave. Be the wind beneath your children's wings, your followers dreams and aspirations. You will never have trouble with that mantra. Otherwise, you'll face the same mass revolts they are now seeing in India.
Sass
Posted by sass at 07:07 PM | Comments (1)
October 10, 2006
Eclictic Electrics
At the recent Paris Auto Show it wasn't only the Ferraris or beautiful models that were getting the attention of the crowds as the latest greatest technology-advanced car.
As sustainability becomes a greater theme not only in the solar industry, but across the automotive industry as well, I expect we'll see more and more vehicles like this Venturi car showcased in Paris or this solar car (Canadian eh?) exhibited at the recent Wired Nextfest in New York. And to make a nice link to solar, the Venturi vehicle features roof-mounted solar panels which can extend the driving range of the car. While 30 miles isn't going to permit you to run around as much as you may wish, others are researching battery technologies which will now permit up to 100 miles before recharge.
Now like every other technology in its infancy, the vehicle is not yet that dragster that can take you from 0-60 in under 5 seconds. Yet in this category, there IS a new entrant which can do just that! Ian Wright, is the inventor of the X1 roadster. Imagine an electric speedster that blows away a Ferrari 360? Seem impossible..think again.
Its very exciting to me that we can use business to change the world. With a global effort to uproot oil's dominance of our power supply from so many angles (power generation, power storage, power management) I think that energy is to this century what the microchip was to the last, a defining technology focus that will change the way we live. Like a hockey stick, we are just on the brink of the upward curve. We may be several decades away from stopping those oil fields from pumping, yet at least it seems like the light is in sight.
Sass
Posted by sass at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2006
Patent Plays
As solar technologies evolve, I expect to see a greater number of applied patents in this field, like in any other. ICP's "DNA" includes innovation at the core of our strategy and thus we have begun to collect a number of patents (issued and applied) in numerous major markets where we intend on marketing our innovations.
However this blog entry by legal counsel at Sun Microsystems is concerning for the "patent playing field" in the USA. It reminds me of the time when ICP was not solely developing solar products back in mid-90s when we had a brief stint with voice recording technology. We had developed an innovative talking picture frame which was immediately picked up by the Sharper Image. It had been designed by none other than Ralph Baer, Inventor of the Sega Laser Gun and numerous other "talking" products. Suddenly, and out of the blue, we received letters asking for injunctions against us and Sharper Image by no less than a legal firm which had been incorporated solely for the purpose of chasing companies for patent rewards.
As noted in the SUN blog entry, I find this to be a perversion of the patent system. When an entire town makes it business to make it easy to sue american (or not) corporations for the purpose of collecting juicy awards in patent cases, you then have the term "free market" taken to its extreme.
It costs money to become a politician. It costs money to develop products. It costs money for most everything we do in life. So why would it not cost money to sue someone? This comes back to the "business of law". When we permit lawyers to run on percentages, they simply seek the easiest money path. Salesmen on commission will seek the path of least resistance to a sale. Unless governed by strict corporate policies, true salesmen will sell, sell ,sell without regard for things such as "do we have the stock?", "is the line being promoted profitable to the company", etc.. So in fact, lawyers without limits are partly creating this issue and that may be where we should start in regulating the patent law industry.
Sass
Posted by sass at 10:27 AM | Comments (1)
October 05, 2006
The blog as a publicity tool...
Interesting read of a blog entry by Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems.
As a CEO of a public company, it was interesting to see how other more seasoned CEO's who blog are attempting to have the corporate blog used as a tool for public information releases, as opposed to the standard SEC approved release methods.
To those who may not yet understand, the Securites and Exchange Commission has a set of rules as to how much information, when and how we can make it public as US listed corporations. What Jonathan proposes is that the blog is the most fair way because there is no opt-in, subscription or "preferred" media chosen, there is only in fact one blog area which the company owns and controls.
I think the challenge is that the SEC wants to ensure that as many people as possible see the news using the "traditional" areas they seek it from. Jonathan's well taken point is that nothing is fairer than the company blog. It would save us loads of time and money and the public which invests or wishes to, would know there is only ONE place they need to go to find the information.
Yet what happens if:
A. The company website is down for a bit and there is no other place on which an immediate investment decision must be made?
B. The company's CEO is not one to permit vetting or editing by the legal beagles and takes some liberty with verbiage not suitable for such a situation?
C. The "personal" opinions of the CEO color the blog entry not through its particular verbiage, yet through other things that he/she may have written before?
Perhaps this exercise is mostly hypothetical at best to try to play devil's advocate yet I am sure that with some more experience under my belt as a public company CEO, I'll understand the hesitations of the SEC and trepidation with which they treat these suggestions.
Nevertheless, I commend Jonathan for taking this natural step, as a publico CEO who is responsible to stakeholders, and how he displays complete respect for that fact in his approach of this "disruptive" proposal. Much to learn...
Sass
Posted by sass at 01:11 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2006
ICP Solar Financial News
The news I could not specify in my last blog entry of September 29th is now out and available for reading on the ICP Solar website. The transaction only officially closed a few minutes after I had posted my last blog, and so begins a new life where I must be extremely judicious in what I publicize and when, lest it be construed as unfair publicity of information which has not been properly shared with shareholders of ICP.
For those who don't totally understand the event, ICP Solar, a company which has been privately held for over 18 years, is now a shared public entity, listed on the Nasdaq OTC exchange under symbol FCFN.OB. Anyone can now become a shareholder of ICP Solar as a result of this event.
Many wondered if I "knew what I was doing" in taking ICP Solar down the public path rather than having accepted numerous private equity offers received in past year. Frankly, in my mind, the public markets place a much higher value on solar entities than do private ones and our business plan is a very aggressive one which will change the nature of our group. Therefore, in my mind at least, it required a path which permitted us to have a new currency on which to trade, do business and be valued...public shares.
We have a great group of investors and a great team which will surely change/grow as a result of this liquidity event. To answer the question "was it the right move?"....ask me in a year's time for a more definitive response. So far, the overwhelming emails from clients, vendors and other partners are an early indication that many are pleased (some surprised) at this event for ICP Solar.
Sass
Posted by sass at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)