It's an interesting question- I think MST going in to Admin...

It's an interesting question- I think MST going in to Admin makes a lot of people think about their own shares- particularly the speccies: financing is important. As to your questions:

"Are there similarities?

"All the technologies, patents, partnerships etc but just seem unable to get over the line."
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When it came down to it, people were either "believers" in MST or not. The non-believers were the ones who needed to believe- industry bodies, the military, the police, etc. The believers were retail holders, sucked into the vortex, and their belief didn't make the company solvent.

Technology/patents: CNN is labour intensive- it's factory work and therefore expensive. It makes products on demand- on orders. It makes new products to the market, yes, and gets patents, but remember- we could all probably get patents for something new- it doesn't mean it will lead to orders. MST didn't have the orders- CNN does.

Partnerships: I don't think MST had nearly enough. CNN does have nearly enough, but not quite enough. CNN is cutting costs, though.

MST got cut off by a lender of last resort. CNN was able, at last attempt, to raise money from the market. However, it was unable to place $900k worth of shares, and that hurt its bottom line. I was in at the time, and unfortunately, there was no announcement to help the raising through, so the share price just fell, making it impossible for the Directors to place those shares.

The market is demanding that CNN be profitable. The last poor result, was, as far as I could see, a mistake CNN had made in holding shares in an unlisted bio company, that raised capital, and CNN got diluted, so the shares ended up being almost worthless- a cautionary tale. It was not particularly about the underlying business. Check out the bio-share disaster in the half yearly accounts.

CNN has made some new products and partnerships this year. It has hired some corporates to help it out with financing, so that will be forthcoming- no-one knows what that means, though.

CNN has been very clear with its finances- it has said how much money it has, and how long that will last; and it has said it is cutting costs. What I am interested in is how much profit it will get from each contract. If we know the company gets a $500k project, how much of that will be net profit, and how much will be costs? Does each new products require a whole new process line in the factory, thereby causing more costs? Anyone got any idea on this?

Just on loss-making enterprises, we are often used to seeing companies in loss on the ASX: thug Directors doing next to nothing year after year. But when one operates a factory, staff have to be paid, and so the market is concerned here. I like CNN- a tweak here and there could sort this one out. It is a *real* business, so perhaps there is more expectation. It also has no debt, unlike MST.