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Many solar companies have jumped on what has become a very annoying branding bandwagon, annoying at least to those of us who wordsmith for a living.

No, it's not the seemingly endless variations on synonyms, abbreviations, and faux foreignisms in the "solar" term family used in corporate monikers. It's the capitalization of letters in the midst of company names or the combining of two words into one, without lower-casing the now-floating letter. SunPower, ReneSola, DayStar, GreenVolts, SolFocus, SolarWorld, HelioVolt, PowerFilm, SoloPower, and PrimeStar are among those causing vertigo with their inner capitalization.

Another culprit can be added to the rolls: MiaSolé, which has deigned to capitalize that ever-present "S" to go along with its pretentiously accented "e," edging dangerously close to looking like the name of a Mediterranean restaurant or worldly boutique. The CIGS thin-film PV player recently launched a new Website coinciding with its decision to join the pack of inner cappers.

Although the company should be lauded for the new site's design, there's not much there there...yet. There's not even a thousand words of content chez MiaSolé, and most of it is rather boilerplate-ish and nonrevelatory, not surprising given bossman Joe Laia's focus on manufacturing-ramp execution rather than marketing hyperbole.

The latest news item from or about the company goes back to July. (In the interests of full disclosure, this peeves me since my feature on certain U.S. CIGS companies in the first edition of Photovoltaics International, which came out in early September, includes a fair dollop of original reporting on MiaSolé.)

But the minimalist Website does reveal that there are nearly 20 job openings at MiaSolé, mostly for engineering positions. Given the recent and pending layoffs from the likes of Applied Materials and KLA-Tencor, I reckon there will be plenty of talented techies vying for those slots who don't care a whit about that capital "S" in the midst of the company's name.

Speaking of Applied, there was an element from the company's financial results announced last week which went curiously underreported amid the news of internal cost reductions, corporate restructuring, and the weak showing on the silicon side of the business. The capital equipment giant's energy and environmental solutions group (AKA solar division) actually made money for the first time during its just-reported fourth fiscal quarter.

Along with $490 million in new orders, the unit pulled in a cool $438 million in sales (including the first recognition of income from a SunFab turnkey TFPV line, at Signet Solar, and strong crystalline results too), and carved out a net operating income of $21 million. For the entire FY2008, the EES group didn't crack the income nut, showing a net loss of $183 million on sales of $819 million.

With orders of some $1.329 billion on the books in FY08, several SunFab lines closing in on factory acceptance sign-offs and revenue reportability, and the crystalline silicon segment moving forward, the question of the moment is whether the momentum will continue or the stormy economic times will prevent AMAT from topping a billion bucks in PV sales in FY2009.

The big dog's gonna need that solar bone, since the semi silicon and display sides' feedbowls are likely to be pretty empty over the next few quarters.

Going back eight quarters, a new PV company went public during this week in 2006--First Solar. Hard to believe, but the cadmium telluride thin-film pioneer had its initial public offering a mere two years ago, opening at 20 samolians per share.

Anyone with half an eye on Wall Street knows the FSLR story since Nov. 17, 2006. After a great ride as one of the hottest stocks, topping $300 in May 2007, the CdTe kids are now trading closer to $100.

During those 24 months, the company has also vastly increased its manufacturing capacity, from about 75 MW to an estimated 735 MW by the end of this year. Not quite as big a jump percentage-wise as that from the first share price to the peak, but a big reason for some analysts' continued bullishness on the company.

Still, many regular investors would be happy with a stock that's worth more than five times what they paid for it (even if it doesn't pay dividends)--so happy anniversary, First Solar!