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Technology Stocks : Lucent Technologies (LU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William Hunt who wrote (8350)	6/28/1999 2:48:00 PM
From: Mighty Mizzou	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21876

From this week's Network World concerning Nexabit. Lucent to snap up terabit router vendor By JIM DUFFY AND DAVID ROHDE Network World Fusion, 06/25/99 Lucent today said it would acquire Nexabit Networks, a privately held start-up developer of terabit routers for the Internet. The deal is valued at $900 million. Nexabit, based in Marlborough, Mass., was founded in 1997 and employs more than 120 people. Nexabit adds a high-speed router for the Internet core to Lucent's data networking portfolio, which also includes Lucent's own PacketStar and Ascend's GRF gigabit routers. Ascend is the IP access and ATM switching powerhouse that Lucent finished acquiring this week. These devices will sit at the edge of a service provider network, feeding data to the Nexabit NX64000 in the core, observers say. "This merger gives Lucent not only a leading product for ultra high-speed IP core networks, but a terrific lead in delivering terabit-speed switch/routers that connect directly to optical networking systems," Curt Sanford, president of Lucent's new InterNetworking Systems (INS) unit, said in a statement. INS, which is anchored by the former Ascend, was created the day before the Nexabit acquisition. INS in turn becomes part of Lucent's now giant Broadband Networking group, headed by Lucent Chief Operating Officer and Bell Labs Chief Dan Stanzione. Broadband Networking also includes Lucent's LAN switching division, but overall it seems dominated by carrier-class products. The moves create the second reorganization of Lucent's data side this year, and analysts will be watching closely to see if that slows any of the company's momentum. "Convergence, now that it's becoming real and not just a theory, is harming organizational charts," says Peter Bernstein, president of Infonautics Consulting in Ramsey, N.J. Bernstein is also a long-time Lucent-watcher. One factor in Lucent's favor: Unlike some other companies it has successfully retained most of the top executives from past acquisitions. Indeed, Nexabit Founder and CEO Mukesh Chatter will become vice president of Advanced IP Core Technologies in Lucent's new INS group. Personnel synergies aside, Lucent and Nexabit already have some existing technology linkage. The companies have an agreement to integrate Lucent's Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical components into Nexabit products. The joint work will enable Nexabit products to provide integrated switch routing of IP traffic directly onto a DWDM optical core network at 10G bit/sec per wavelength, Lucent claims. The Nexabit NX64000 supports IP, ATM, and Frame Relay and MPLS. The router is in beta trials with several service providers, including Frontier Communications, Road Runner and OneNet. Lucent joins rivals Nortel, Siemens and Ericsson in snapping up high-speed router start-ups to prepare for the Internet data networking bandwidth explosion and future voice/data convergence applications. Siemens recently acquired Argon Network, while Ericsson purchased Torrent Network Technologies. Nortel, meanwhile, has a 20% stake in Avici Systems. Lucent expects the transaction to be completed by July 31.

To: William Hunt who wrote (8350)	6/28/1999 2:56:00 PM
From: Mighty Mizzou	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21876

Thought this was relevant and interesting also. Enjoy! Bay buy splits up Nortel, Avici By JIM DUFFY Network World Fusion, 06/25/99 Nortel Network and terabit router start-up Avici Systems have ended their business relationship. This comes in response to skyrocketing market valuations for Internet start-up companies as well as Nortel's acquisition of Bay Networks, Avici says. Nortel acquired 20% of Avici in early 1998 as a prelude to shipping a Nortel-branded version of Avici's Terabit Switch Router (TSR). In mid-1998, Nortel acquired Bay, the No. 2 router vendor behind Cisco. Nortel will maintain its equity stake in Avici but will not distribute the TSR, says Pete Chadwick, vice president of marketing for Avici. Nortel has also given up its seat on the Avici board. "It's most directly a result of their Bay acquisition," Chadwick says. "But from our perspective, we kind of looked out at what was going on in terms of the marketplace. Fifteen months ago it seemed that to really penetrate the carrier space you needed to align yourself with larger equipment providers. As evidenced by some of the recent public offerings, that's no longer true." Lucent today acquired Avici competitor Nexabit Networks for $900 million. And Juniper Networks, another Avici challenger, went public this week and is valued at $1.6 billion. "Our view was that some of the basic ground rules had changed," Chadwick says. "We felt that being closely aligned with Nortel limited our ability to work with some customers who had other people as their lead equipment vendors." As far as the Bay acquisition, Chadwick says Nortel was distracted with integrating that company's personnel and product lines with its own. "They had a number of architectures that they were dealing with in the marketplace," Chadwick says. "That gets very difficult to do as you progress forward." "This just opens us up to more easily pursue our plan to remain independent and go public," he adds. Nortel, meanwhile, says the decision to sever the marketing and distribution arrangement with Avici was mutual. Nortel recently unveiled a high-speed router for service providers - the 240G bit/sec Versalar 25000 - and has other internal developments underway that can scale the Versalar platform to hundreds of terabits, says Arun Jain, Nortel director of marketing for carrier routing products. Nortel will unveil some of these developments within the next several weeks, Jain says.