FJ, If I may, believe Ice41 is simply referring to Effect's System-on-Chip (SoC) technology and whether or not it represents legitimate competition for POET and perhaps others in the space.  IMO, a fair question.

When we talk about competition, one can look at it 1 of 2 ways: Technology or Products.  In this case, perhaps its best to look at actual products and/or product roadmap rather than trying to understand the technology each brings to the table.  

On the surface, Effect's SoC sounds like it could simply be a different but functionally equivalent version of POET's platform, leading one to believe they are technological competitors.  However, based on information from each of their websites, Effect's offering doesn't appear to have the flexibility of a true platform technology as seen in POET's.  They appear to have one product applicable to a few markets only.  Further, there is no information regarding new product development, SoC flexibility, etc.  It's likely their SoC was designed from the ground up for a specific purpose, their 10Gbps DWDM transceiver, and new products will require a similar ground-up development process.  Not so for POET.  Of course, one would think Effect will eventually develop other products, but their website lacks any sort of product roadmap or pipeline as we've seen with POET.

When it comes to what we do know about products currently in develpoment (ie where the money is) the table below will tell you all you need to know about the power and flexibility of the POET platform vs the Effect SoC.  Add in the myraid of technical and cost advantages POET brings to the table, I believe it when the company says customers will be lining up for the opportunity to work with POET.