Sola/Hevi-Duty Receives 2004 Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Frost & Sullivan's recent analysis, World Voltage Regulator Markets, selected Sola/Hevi-Duty as the recipient of the 2004 Market Leadership Award for its ability to sustain its brand equity in Ferroresonant products and also position itself positively according to market trends.

Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has exhibited market share leadership through the implementation of Market strategy. The award recognizes excellence in all areas of the market leadership process, including the identification of industry challenges and market drivers and restraints, as well as strategy development and methods of addressing these revenue dynamics.

The Ferroresonant technology is considered to be a patented design from Sola, and at present, the company is one of the select manufacturers of the Ferroresonant voltage regulating product. Ferroresonant designs have exceptional power conditioning properties such as isolation and noise attenuation.

"Sola/Hevi-Duty's ability to promote itself and its product lines while simultaneously maintaining a strong position in the market is commendable," says Frost and Sullivan Industry Analyst G.V. Suryanarayana Raju. "The company's engineering and distribution strengths also play a major role in enhancing the performance of the company in a mature market such as the voltage regulator market."

Sola has historically been synonymous with high-quality voltage regulating products, and even now, it continues to receive the same kind of response for its brand name. The flexibility of the company to take advantage of brand value and product features is commendable.

Sola's most successful strategy has been its brand positioning. Ferroresonant technology's exceptional ability of isolation, noise attenuation, harmonic mitigation, and unique property of converting square wave to sine wave make it an excellent power conditioning solution. "Sola has taken advantage of these features in its products and positioned the product line as a power conditioning solution rather than just a voltage regulator," notes Raju. "Competing with large power conditioning companies Sola holds the highest market share in the U.S. Ferroresonant power conditioning market."

The company has also ventured into developing products that are expected to have a strong demand in the future and help expansion into newer markets. For instance, Sola recently introduced the Solatron Plus, a 3-phase Power Conditioner that uses tap-switching technology and inverter models for high power applications.

Sola's voltage regulation product line (the CVS series) includes a basic constant voltage transformer that is used for exclusive voltage regulation. It also has products with other value-added features such as surge protection and noise filtering. These features are included in the MPC series used in medical applications.

Sola sells through distribution channels with no direct sales. The company is considered to have one of the largest electrical and electronic distribution channels in United States which helps push their products to the end user more efficiently than competitors. This is a direct result of Sola's broad product range that predominantly targets industrial controls markets.

Overall, Sola/Hevi-Duty's ability to promote itself and its product lines while simultaneously maintaining a strong position in the market is commendable. The company's engineering and distribution strengths play a major role in enhancing its performance in a mature space such as the voltage regulator market.

About Sola/Hevi-Duty

For more information, visit http://www.sola-hevi-duty.com.

About Frost & Sullivan

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