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To: William Grady who wrote (366)	7/10/1998 4:03:00 PM
From: kinkblot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1138

William, ----->how does Applied Materials fit into the picture? From Brooks' 1997 Form 10-K, pages 6-7, "Competition": Although other independent companies sell vacuum and atmospheric wafer and flat panel display substrate handling automation systems and vacuum transfer robots to OEMs, the Company believes that its primary competition is from the larger, integrated semiconductor and flat panel display OEMs that satisfy their substrate handling needs in-house rather than by purchasing handling systems or modules from an independent source such as the Company. Such OEMs comprise the majority of the Company's current and potential customers. Applied Materials Inc., the leading process equipment OEM, develops and manufactures its own central wafer handling systems and modules. The Company believes that most vacuum central wafer handling systems and modules are manufactured in-house by OEMs.... The competitive threat from Equipe has subsequently increased since they now have greater financial strength as a division of PRI Automation. Equipe had revenues of $18.3M for the 12/97 quarter out of $65.1M pro forma for the combined PRI + Equipe (from PRIA 10-Q). Brooks revenues were $24.6M for that quarter, so Equipe had 3/4 the revenues of Brooks then, with only part of that in direct competition. Combined PRIA revenues dropped to $47.1M for the 3/98 quarter, but Equipe revenues were not broken out. Equipe claims to be the leading supplier of atmospheric transfer robots, as opposed to vacuum transfer robots which is Brooks' specialty. Perhaps you could get a better idea of how they stack up by taking a look at their website. Though except for News Releases, it looks like the site hasn't been updated lately: Equipe website - equipetech.com Will