Lucent buys Chromatis Networks
Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) is acquiring metropolitan-optical-network systems developer Chromatic Networks (Herndon, VA) in a stock transaction involving approximately 78 million shares of common stock. "With Chromatis," says Richard McGinn, Lucent chairman and CEO, "Lucent is one step closer to bringing the speed and power of fiberoptics all the way to a customer's desktop." The acquisition is valued at about $4.5 billion and excludes the roughly 7% stake already owned by Lucent's venture-capital subsidiary. The transaction is expected to dilute Lucent's pro forma earnings per share for ongoing operations by about $0.02 this year and $0.05 in FY2001.
Startup Ilotron will develop an all-optical router
Startup company Ilotron (Colchester, England) will specialize in core network optical routing, a market it claims will grow to more than $50 billion during the next five years. The technological spinoff from the University of Essex Photonic Networks Research Centre (Essex, England) plans to develop the world's first all-optical core network router following first-round funding of $10 million from venture-capital company 3i. The device is expected to be not only capable of evolving to optical packet switching, but also scalable to petabit capacity for core transport networks. "The alpha product will be ready by autumn of this year and will operate in the terabit regime," adds Philip Hemsted, the firm's marketing director. "Laboratory models have already shown proof of the concept of optical packet switching."
Cisco Systems acquires Qeyton Systems
Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) has agreed to acquire privately held Qeyton Systems in a deal worth roughly $800 million. Qeyton, which is based in Stockholm, Sweden, specializes in metropolitan dense wavelength-division-multiplexing (MDWDM) technology. Under terms of the agreement, Cisco will exchange common stock for all outstanding shares of the MDWDM manufacturer. Qeyton, which was founded in 1988, currently has 52 employees and will continue its operations in Stockholm under the leadership of CEO Claes Rickeby.
WaveSplitter plans to design and produce planar lightwave circuits
WaveSplitter Technologies (Fremont, CA), which develops components for optical amplifiers and DWDM systems, has opened a 10,000-sq ft R&D and manufacturing facility in Atlanta, GA. Initial production efforts will concentrate on passive products, but over time the firm plans to integrate active components on planar structures. The Atlanta facility will include a small sales operation and will employ 12 people. Sample products will ship late in the third quarter, with small-volume production expected by year's end. When production levels for various products reach a certain volume, their high-volume manufacturing responsibilities will be transferred to the firm's Fremont plant.
Corvis buys Algety Telecom
Corvis Corp. (Columbia, MD) has signed an agreement to acquire Algety Telecom (Lannion, France), a privately held company that develops terabit-capacity long-haul transmission systems, for an undisclosed number of shares. Algety has developed soliton-based DWDM systems that enable both 40 and 10-Gbit/s transmission to be sent over long distances in a purely optical form.
Also in the news . . .
Kevin Kalkhoven, chairman and CEO of JDS Uniphase (Nepean, Ontario, Canada, and San Jose, CA), has announced his retirement, but will remain a strategic advisor to cochairman and newly appointed CEO Jozef Straus in the near term. . . . ITF Optical Technologies, a privately held developer of passive photonic components, has received a $28 million round of investment that brings total funding to more than $40 million since the firm's inception in 1998. . . . SpectraSwitch (Santa Rosa, CA), a privately held manufacturer of liquid-crystal-based optical components, has completed second-round venture-capital funding to the tune of $18.1 million.
Paula Noaker Powell
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