It will be interesting to follow the progress (and review the company balance sheets) of the major fiber-laser manufacturers as this debate continues to unfold. An audience member asked the panel which company was going to stop vertically integrated IPG Photonics (Oxford, MA) from taking over the fiber-laser market, and it became clear in the debate that followed that there were two opposing opinions regarding whether a fiber-laser manufacturer must have its own laser-diode fabrication facility to be successful. A year later, I raised this issue with David Parker, president and CEO of SPI Lasers, and Bill Shiner, vice president for industrial markets at IPG Photonics.