[mckilljoy]

I can say from personal experience that the customers are probably a bit of both. Engineers walk through looking for parts for their prototypes, and then once the prototypes are complete, come back and set up a contract for 1,000's more of the exact same part for the production run.

To me, that is the real benefit. In America, you can make your prototypes with parts from Digikey or Fry's, but if you actually wanted to make a production run, you have to source all your parts from scratch.