Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and Newport Corp. have made an agreement in which Newport will market and distribute a number of Ball Aerospace commercial products to the semiconductor equipment market. Under the distribution agreement, Ball Aerospace will continue to design and manufacture its commercial fast-steering mirrors, which will then be distributed using Newport's international sales force and catalog marketing group. "This agreement represents an ideal alignment of two companies whose combined expertise in the commercial arena can better serve our similar customer bases in the semiconductor equipment market," said Steve Shimer, manager of business development for Ball Aerospace's Engineering Technology Products business unit. "As Ball Aerospace continues to commercialize its technology, it makes sense to position these products more competitively in the marketplace. Newport's marketing and distribution capabilities will allow us to meet this strategic goal. This is only the first of what we hope will be a long line of commercial products Ball Aerospace has developed to meet the needs of Newport's extensive customer base." "Fast-steering mirror technology will increase the breadth of Newport's product offerings for the semiconductor equipment market as well as enhance Newport's ability to provide its customers with enabling optical systems solutions," said Brad Stephens, Newport's marketing manager for strategic markets. "By utilizing Ball Aerospace's strong technology background, we are confident that together we will be able to bring other Ball products to the commercial marketplace."