Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Amit Bhalla.
Amit Bhalla - Citi
I wanted to start with a couple of questions on the North American oncology business. Given that it was down 20% in orders, I was hoping Tim if you could give us a little bit more color on the moving parts. Clearly we’re assuming Clinac was down significantly, but give us some more color on software and brachytherapy in the business in North America.
Timothy E. Guertin
Software and brachy were both up in terms of orders. The problem was in Clinac, and and you might expect the freestanding market was not a good market in the fourth quarter as people are waiting to see what the reimbursement numbers are, and I think more importantly to understand what’s behind whatever decision CMS makes. They want to not just see the numbers, but they want to understand how those numbers were derived. The hospital market was also down in North America. I think that’s continued for Clinacs, and that’s once again related to hospitals trying to control their capital budget. They are trying to look forward to what healthcare reform impacts will be, and I think capital equipment projects are one of the places where they are trying to show restraint until they know what the story is. So I think this is going to make 2010 a tougher year than I would otherwise expect it to be. We’ve shown that that backlog remains real, that people turn those orders into real sales which helped us in 2009, and I think that when those capital budgets return for hospitals, we’ll see a lot of strength, but we’ve to get through 2010 for that to happen. So although I’m at the beginning of 2010, I suppose I’m really looking forward to latter half of 2010 and 2011, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how healthcare reform and reimbursement decisions are made by the government.
Amit Bhalla - Citi
Is there a anyway for you to tease out or even give us a best guess of how much of the North America order book was impacted by the delays due to people waiting on the sidelines for reimbursement, even a guess?
Timothy E. Guertin
I think for the freestanding marketplace, that market was probably about one-half of what it would ordinarily be, and that’s a severe problem.
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