After the usual dull bits about spreadsheets, Puma took to the stage and rattled off a detailed well written sales pitch about its Optima HD implanter. Thinking at first I was in the wrong conference call it was hard to keep up with all the points she was throwing out to the analysts about why their new tool is simply the best on the block.

Then Puma switched to raising a few questions she had obviously written down beforehand and without a gasp for air rushed straight in to provide the answers!

It was all about the hoo-ha surrounding Varian's tool order win with an existing Axcelis customer in the deeply conservative tool selection territory of Japan. No doubt Puma had been getting a lot of calls from analysts and such like before the conference call and felt compelled to tell her side of the story.

As far as Puma was concerned, backed up with the attendance and support of the VP of sales and marketing, its market share in Japan was anything other than biz as usual. She claimed that the order win was more to do with "pricing" than anything else and that as far as they could tell they still had 62 percent of the Japanese market.

Then we get Varian, pump out two press releases coinciding with its financial results, highlighting the order wins! Then in the conference call one of the first things mentioned by Gary Dickerson, Varian's head honcho that they were gaining market share and should finish the year with a 40 percent share of the implanter cake. Not surprisingly Dickerson highlighted the strengths of its implanter technology over rivals and felt pretty good with how things were going and certainly took full pleasure in rubbing Puma's nose in it!

If Dickerson is correct about market shares, then we are indeed seeing a shift. VLSI Research figures for the last two quarters would seem to confirm Varian's interpretations. However, quarterly market share numbers, particularly in the implant arena are highly volatile.

According to VLSI Research, Varian has actually been losing market share, not by any big flows, rather a tiny trickle over the last few years. In fact taking a more holistic view of the overall implant market would suggest that things have pretty much stayed the same since 2002.

This backs up my perception that the implant biz tend to lack any "zip" and "intrigue" and seems quite boring (boron spin) most of the time.

With Varian claiming around a 10 percent market share gain for 2005, the implanter biz is anything but boring. Now who would have guessed  I would be saying that!