Layoffs in Telecoms
lfw.pennnet.com
But according to Business Week, reason for concern at Nortel
over the long term may have less to do with the overall economy
than with shifting technology. As an increasingly competitive
telecom market looks more and more towards dense
wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to solve its
rapidly growing capacity demands and less to the synchronous
optical network (SONET) equipment provided by Nortel and other
providers of legacy optical equipment, the cash flow such
transactions have provided is likely to diminish significantly, possibly
as early as this quarter. So the question may be less a matter of
what is the economy doing and more a matter of how the bottom
lines of the Nortels and Lucents of the world will be affected as they
transition from older to newer technology in a rapidly shifting
market. And once again, in the balance Nortel and Lucent have
both announced major fiberoptic cabling deals in China early this
month.
Similarly,
JDS Uniphase (JDSU) announced 3,000 layoffs at the end of
February in passive-component manufacturing operations in
San Jose, CA, and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
The reductions will be confined primarily to manufacturing
operations and reflect opportunities for realignment and improved
efficiency as a result of the current business environment,
according to a company statement.
At the same time JDSU will continue to hire for key positions
in its high-growth product areas, as well as to aggressively support
its new product development strategy.
In fact, a week prior to announcing the layoffs, JDSU announced
another acquisition. It bought Optical Process Automation
(Melbourne, FL), a designer and manufacturer of automated and
semiautomated systems for the manufacture of fiberoptic
components and modules. |
