OK, my forebodings of general distress and poverty have come to pass. One reader called them ’somber’, which is as good a word as any. Our clever friends in the alternative energy (PV, organic devices, etc) fields are watching their startups fade away, and those that can, are going back to their academic day jobs. Others are just out of luck, and out of work. A great deal of innovative R&D is hanging fire, and will not last until the wave of stimulus money dribbles down through the traditional channels, and for sure, the venture boys are not taking up the slack.
At Cooke, we have never before had so many dollars of solicited quotations out there, and so few orders. I’m calling people back who were ready to buy two months ago, but who are now just history, erased names in the directory. Our state, Connecticut, is, at least publicly busted, and is essentially forced to squeeze business even more.
So, ms. thin film scientist, where can we go from here?Cooke has traditionally been either the most economical source of high vacuum equipment, or more often, the most flexible in terms of design and customization. By and large, a collapse of equipment funds should funnel jobs to us- the last guy standing effect, but this is not happening. Comparing notes with friendly competitors, we see a residue of activity offshore, the DHS boondoggle, some military fantasies, and not much more. We think that the situation has passed difficult, and gone on to impossible: you can’t buy what you need, we can’t sell what you want, no matter how low we drive the cost. Six years of deliberate suppression of science followed by a depression have had an effect!
But we are optimists. Yes we are! Just as Noah Webster was unable to define ‘permanent’ we know that these dark days shall pass, eventually. The trick is not only to survive, but do something useful despite adversity. In that spirit, we’re about to announce a couple of thin film tools that would have been pointless in better times, but may just be precisely what’s needed now. We’re paring down, simplifying, re-purposing systems just the way some of you have always done - to make do, to make possible. We’re even going to lease the stuff you can’t buy, and yes, we can put up with the inevitable hand-holding that this involves. We’re not going to make plywood bell jars, or suggest you use batteries for a sputter source, but if something is possible that enables our customer, we’re going there.
This is, by most lights, a very, very bad way to run a business! Profit, in capital equipment, comes from feature enhancements, add-ons, service policies, and once in a great while, truly great functionality. It does not come from selling small numbers of low-cost items to impoverished, yet demanding, customers. However, we’ve been doing just this for many years, so we do have experience in the area.
To start, we’re thinking of a way to get an organic electronic vacuum evaporator with a controlled-atmosphere enclosure whittled down to the basics, as this seems to be the number one unaffordable thing in small systems right now. What do you want to see?
