Adder was right in the requirement for the product to pass...

Adder was right in the requirement for the product to pass through the TRL levels in order to gain full certification and acceptance for military use.

Hence the deal with Taser for Police use which does not have the same requirement.

This TRL requirement was difficult due to the disruptive nature of the tech i.e. it impacted both the chicken and the egg - the delivery system and the amoo.

Since 2007 there has been a dearth of risk capital (i.e. GFC) for large scale new production processes which are not 'certain winners'.

The analogy with Microsoft is not relevant a better equivalent is Apple - the difference being for both these tech boys was that both developed a cash cow which underwrote their major advances Apple had the Apple II which underwrote the Mac, then the i Series and Microsoft had Excel and Apple Basic which underwrote Word and then MS DOS then Windows then Access. There were no rules which mattered when both these coys started.

MST had no such cash cow. MST also IMO made a strategic mistake in signing up with Taurus rather than Colt in the early part of the 21st century for hand gun production - that seems now to have been resolved.

Normally in these situations in the defence field the home government becomes the provider of the underlying cash cow i.e. patient long term finance with no deadline on repayment. In Aust this was in the early days the DSTO who have throughout provided funding within their charter. So the early non lethal development received funding from both AUST and US sources.

However DSTO cannot fund the step from proven concept to commercial production - that is the charter of DMO as witness the Collins class submarine.

DMO made a call in either 2006 or 2007 or 2008 (cannot recall when) that they would not get involved until there had been significant adoption by overseas defence forces. This decision is what led to the path the Mgt has had to follow since.

Why DMO did this is unclear - we as shareholders think this was myopic and so do people such as A Doyle I suspect. DMO as an organisation seems to have major cultural and structural issues as witness the incredible failure to develop effective webbing equipment for our soldiers over a thirty year period.

Defence Aust has also been hit with funding cuts since 2007 - most severely this year - some justified some not IMO. This makes disruptive technology and the risks associated with its adoption even higher - which to an organisation coping with things such as described above are even less likely to stick their neck out.

Finally there is the technology leakage issue - in 2007 some major countries read Pakistan and China had not adopted the level of patent protection available in other places in the world. A simple but effective way to prevent reverse engineering is to not adopt the systems in large scale until involvement in conflicts where such a leakage is highly likely have been concluded.

Also in 2007 there were still some outstanding engineering issues to resolve, most notably the seals issue and no major live fire trials had been conducted as best I recall.

The PNG deal was IMO a way to field test the MAUL within a controlled environment without involving the TRL issues of military trials - this went to custard when the PNG's whole govt went to and remains custard.

This of course is all speculation but seems to fit the available facts as I know them and also explain why no matter how desperate things seem funding does appear.

By 2013 2014 it is likely that production will begin and adoption will follow both in the US Canada Singapore and possibly Aust Police. The non lethal involvement is crucial to this and remains the clearest path forward - So

I have I hold and I wait.