Kelheim, Germany, July 21, 2003; PCO, one of the leading manufacturers of scientific cameras, announced today its acquisition of The COOKE Corporation of Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA.Dr. Emil Ott, PCO’s President acknowledged, "We are extremely pleased to combine our engineering competence and technology with The COOKE Corporation’s position in the North American imaging marketplace. This acquisition not only secures our presence in the North American marketplace, more importantly, it enhances our responsiveness to all our International customers, with more efficient qualified input, products and service support. The COOKE Corporation brings to us complementary resources that will benefit our customers involved in high performance imaging applications, by advancing the quality and applicability of our future products. In essence, PCO and The COOKE Corporation are now “walking together” to better serve our customers and improve our position amongst the leading scientific camera providers worldwide.”In keeping with Dr. Ott’s statement, Steve Daicos, President of The COOKE Corporation commented, "We have had a long-standing and successful business relationship between us spanning over ten years, and this acquisition came as a natural progression of our developing partnership with PCO. Our customers have benefited greatly from the top performance and technical quality of the PCO camera systems, and this new step is a clear demonstration to all our customers, especially our OEM customers, of the commitment that PCO has placed in the North American and International marketplaces.”About PCOPCO is a global leader in the development, manufacturing and marketing of scientific cameras. Worldwide representatives, together with an internal sales department and technical support have assured that PCO maintains a high level of connectivity with all their customers imaging needs. Their wide range of specialized camera systems is the result of technical challenge and product specific know-how. A design according to advanced techniques, a high standard of production, and strict quality controls has resulted in highly reliable cameras. Internal technical developments in conjunction with strong connections to leading manufacturers of image sensors ensure access to state-of-the-art CCD and CMOS-technology for the camera systems. Established in 1987, the company was founded with the objective to develop and produce specialized fast and sensitive video camera systems for scientific applications. PCO has a long history in camera systems and is recognized for its engineering competence, high technology and well-established manufacturing capabilities that allow for continuous innovative imaging products. For more information, visit the company's web site at www.pco.de.About The COOKE CorporationThe COOKE Corporation is a manufacturing, sales and marketing organization offering photonic instrumentation and complete systems throughout the world. The COOKE Corporation specializes in the areas of High Speed Imaging and Lighting Systems, High Performance CCD Imaging Systems, Optical Non-Contact Measuring and Monitoring Instrumentation, and NIST Traceable Light Measurement Instrumentation. It was originally created to bridge-the-gap between manufacturers of state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation and end-users, and later pursued technological innovations aimed at offering total photonics solutions, problem solving and technology capabilities for the market areas of university and industrial research, automotive, military and biomedical. The COOKE Corporation was founded in 1986. For more information, visit the company's web site at www.cookecorp.com.About the FutureThe COOKE Corporation will continue to operate under its management organization, retaining the key management, sales and service personnel. The company will continue to market, sell and service PCO’s current line of products and looks forward to enhancing these products with the release of the new camera solutions.With the new higher performance 14-bit camera systems, PCO and the COOKE Corporation will continue to supply their existing markets and expanding new market areas of high throughput screening, semiconductor metrology, airborne imaging, quality control, high resolution microscopy, digital mammography, radiology, teleradiology, and TEM, to name a few. The consolidated resources of the two companies will further expand their software support to include all operating systems and the creation of drivers for popular imaging software packages.