New Furukawa venture to co-exist with JDS Uniphase

Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd (Tokyo, Japan) says it does not plan to compete with JDS Uniphase (San Jose, CA), despite having formed Fitel Technologies (Clinton, NJ) to tackle the fiberoptics and optoelectronics markets in North America. Furukawa has been partners for years with JDS Uniphase, formerly JDS Fitel, and both companies said that partnership will continue. Furukawa has named John Pilitsis, formerly of Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ), as president of Fitel Technologies and is backing the company with more than 1000 engineers, scientists, and product developers from Furukawa. JDS Uniphase, meanwhile, has completed its acquisition of Epitaxx (Trenton, NJ), a maker of long-wavelength detectors and receivers.