Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). The first question comes from the line of John Nelson. Please go ahead.
John Nelson - State of Wisconsin Investment
Good job on the quarter and a wonderful job on controlling expenses. My question was related to the vision robots, the big order that was filled and recognized of $2.5 million for the major consumer electronics manufacturer? Do you think is that basically filled them up or do you think this is the beginning of potential more orders in the future to this particularly manufacturer?
John Dulchinos
Yes, we’ve actually been very pleased to see a rebound in the technology sector. The one thing about the technology sector is it tends to be lumpy, so you get an order and it gets digested. We expect to see continued strength in 2010 in the technology sector and we expect to receive additional orders from this customer as well as others in this space. The timing and the specifics of it ends up being a bit lumpy, so it’s hard to project an exact timing to it, but this is the beginning of what should be some additional business over the next few quarters.
John Nelson - State of Wisconsin Investment
Was that order, both initiated and filled within the quarter?
John Dulchinos
The order came in at the end of last quarter and the majority of it was filled this quarter, but not all of it.
John Nelson - State of Wisconsin Investment
You mentioned that solar being very slow, but you are designed in for 10 manufacturers for the tools for solar?
John Dulchinos
Yes.
John Nelson - State of Wisconsin Investment
Are those manufacturers, both domestic and international and if there are some that are international, are they European and Asian or can you identify the geographical areas?
John Dulchinos
Yes, they are all three. There are US equipment builders, there are European equipment builders and there are Asian equipment builders. The solar business runs like the semiconductor equipment business does and that it’s kind of cyclical and you need to get designed in the equipment manufactures’ tools during slow periods because when you got to ramp, they're just going to replicate whatever they have.
To us, the measure of our success in solar is our ability to get these design wins and what's most notable is the last cycle, when solar revenues were 5% of our business in 2008, we only had three equipment design wins. We made a lot of progress on that front, even though it doesn’t show up on the revenue line yet, we believe that puts us in a good position for the future when the solar market starts to reinvest in capacity and reinvest in equipment and we'll be in a good spot for that.
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