There can be a fundamental problem when private equity firms buy up companies in a depressed condition in that the overwhelming desire to sell off those assets at the most favorable valuations can be in…
Given that we have learned that Avago Technologies intends to keep only the VCSEL chip fab (in March, we were the first news source to report that the supplier was selling such bare die to…
When Cisco Systems recently published the specifications of its Network Convergence System 1002 (NCS 1002), it theoretically could be called a Data Center Interconnection (DCI) “killer,” but only for a few of the high-end content…
Apparently, Xtera Communications’ desire to exit the optical business can no longer be characterized at all as graceful, but as somewhat frantic. There had been speculation in the industry that the supplier had even backed…
Despite its long-term survival being a question mark only a few years ago as principally a long-haul player, Infinera fancies itself as now being positioned to become one of the dominant end-to-end optical vendors. We…
While the industry narrative continues to push the illogical idea that AT&T is leading the pack internationally as a transformational player, the operator has seemed to be more concerned in remaining a copper service juggernaut….
If a recent Reuters’ article is correct at all about Verizon considering the sale of its enterprise business (which the operator has called “speculative” and “baseless”), we anticipate that by the service provider pulling the…
The arrangement that US-based Fujitsu Network Communications (FNC) has with Fujitsu Limited is extremely unique in the optical industry given the extraordinary amount of independence provided by the latter to the former – especially unusual…
At the recent ECOC Exhibition 2015, there was the continuation of the prevailing optical industry’s preposterous, public narrative that the deployment of 400G is within sight. There can be no doubt that in the foreseeable…
Although Microsoft and others have been discussing the notion of an Open Line System (OLS) to provide standardization with long-haul and metro equipment, there is little precedent for such grand notions ever coming close to…
Finisar’s current business model based on the all-encompassing optical components approach in the datacom/telecom market with a large amount of vertical integration from chips to subsystems, along with designing every conceivable flavor demanded by the…
Over the last three decades, there has not been a more respected telecommunications equipment vendor than ADTRAN. Historically, its success was mainly predicated on taking a step or two backward to find opportunities with mature…
ADVA Optical Networking’s CEO mentioned that it “is considering a ‘larger deal [than the Time4 Systems purchase] more in the mid-term’ that could give it access to a new group of customers,” according to a…
A recent press release written in Chinese apparently demonstrates that Hon Hai Precision Industry’s Foxconn Interconnect Technology has purchased some of Avago Technologies’ optical product lines. Our current understanding is that Foxconn will take over…
In general, AT&T is a competent service provider with the most established brand in the industry, and thus, no manager needs to fear ever getting fired for selecting the company over other competitors. At the…
Once again, we have a natural affinity for the proposition of taking advantage of electronics, such as higher order modulation, to better enable optics by squeezing more data onto a single wavelength. However, by the…
While for now, Avago Technologies will be preoccupied with the immense and time-consuming effort of its integration process with Broadcom, not too long afterwards, it would not be surprising if there would be a spin-off…
Microsoft has been caught in the undesirable middle with its Data Center (DC) infrastructure between striving to innovate with the lowest cost, state-of-the-art optical solutions as a huge enterprise player, and reconciling it with a…
Ciena beat the overwhelming odds as a startup in the 1990s to become the most dominant optical system vendor in the global telecom space. However, while it used to be the case that incumbency with…
When it comes to defending its overwhelmingly dominant position on the Internet or in extracting the very last penny in its network cost, Google will play hardball with the best of them. Yet, when it…
Mellanox Technologies is a typical Israeli-based firm in the datacom/telecom space in that it excels at technology development, but not necessarily from a marketing/sales perspective. While the vendor has expanded internationally and has its second…
Although the hoopla over silicon photonics (SP) has not been as pronounced at IBM as at Intel, including consistent involvement by technologists at the highest corporate layer of the latter, the former was heavily promoting…
With neighboring service providers, Deutsche Telekom (DT) and Orange recently announcing aggressive schedules to migrate their networks completely to the Internet Protocol (IP), British Telecom has become the poster child of supposed laggards regarding moving…
We have been pondering the question of what happens when emerging optical component vendors, being financed by mega-data center operators to achieve the lowest cost possible, need more money, especially for new research and development…
While the hype machine on the latest and greatest technology always reigns supreme in the fiber optics market, Intel appeared to take Silicon Photonics (SP) to an unprecedented level for an extremely long period of…
