Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Mark Douglass - Longbow Research.
Mark Douglass - Longbow Research
A couple of things. What was the orders for scientific again? I missed that.
John Ambroseo
$30.9 million.
Mark Douglass - Longbow Research
When did the investigations roll off for the legal expenses?
John Ambroseo
The remaining costs are tied to the derivative litigation and there is ongoing dialogue with the Plaintiffs in that matter. We can’t tell you an exact timeframe for it.
Mark Douglass - Longbow Research
Okay, But you would expect them to continue to trend down, I assume?
John Ambroseo
I can’t make any predictions at this time, Mark.
Mark Douglass - Longbow Research
Okay, fair enough. Can you give a little more color I guess into the microelectronics market? Your solar I guess, you said its doing okay at this time? Are those orders starting to roll off--?
John Ambroseo
The solar market has performed reasonably well over the last few years. I think if you look at the numbers for ?08, ?07, ?06, you saw roughly a doubling of the business every year. Certainly the first quarter this year, we have record bookings for any given quarter, and that is good news, but as I said there are a lot of moving pieces in the solar market and funding is the big question mark right now, not only from the company end, but also from the consumer end.
That is the reason that I use the term, that we are guardedly optimistic rather than wildly optimistic about the opportunity. As far as the sales of the microelectronics market, I think the pressures in that segment are well documented by companies who have much greater exposure to it than we do. There is weakness in chip demand, there’s weakness in end user demand. So its pretty broad spread at this point.
Mark Douglass - Longbow Research
Your gross margin performance was nice. You were able to get those tops out of there fairly quickly, quicker than I anticipated, that was good to see. Are you expecting I assume the movements you made and the re-foot printing of everything, you’re confident that your 42%, 43% say pro-forma gross margin is more or less sustainable for the rest of the year and going forward?
John Ambroseo
I would love to be able to confirm that, but there is a lot that goes into it, including revenue levels and mix and I think there is enough uncertainty in the marketplace right now that we’ll stick to the 90 day guidance.
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