Orlando, Fla. -- C-COR Electronics Inc. continued down its
acquisition path last week with a $50 million agreement to buy
optical-transmission-systems maker Silicon Valley Communications Inc.
Fresh off a deal to buy network-management-services
provider Convergence.com Corp. for about $47 million, C-COR announced a letter of intent
to buy Santa Clara, Calif.-based SVCI for stock plus debt assumption.
At a news conference at Cable-Tec Expo '99 here last week,
C-COR president and CEO David Woodle said the buyout furthers the company's stated
strategy of complementing its core RF-equipment-manufacturing business, both with other
hardware sectors and especially with network-design and management capabilities such as
those of Convergence.com.
Woodle added that fiber-based solutions to enhance
bandwidth would enable C-COR's existing customer base to more broadly deploy
revenue-enhancing, advanced two-way services such as interactive video and high-speed
Internet access
"We continue to see a growing need for
high-performance, high-quality fiber optic products for the evolving architectures, and we
feel that the SVCI products will significantly expand our ability to meet the requirements
today and into the future for superior network integrity," Woodle said in a prepared
statement.
C-COR -- which will change its name to C.COR.net Corp.
after the Convergence.com merger -- has developed some fiber optic capabilities, such as
5RU headend equipment, but it was still some time away from achieving any customer
certifications, Woodle said.
Instead, C-COR decided that it needed to move to market
more quickly via an acquisition.
The company had already been in discussions with SVCI about
joint business, which elevated to merger talks over the past month, Woodle said.A
five-year-old company with more than 100 employees, SVCI counts AT&T Corp. and Time
Warner Inc. among its customers.
Products created at its Santa Clara research lab and
manufacturing facilities include 1310-nanometer forward- and return-path transmitters and
receivers; 1550-nm dense-wave-division-multiplexing transmitters; 1550-nm externally
modulated transmitters; erbium-doped fiber amplifiers in 3 RU and 1 RU sizes; and
SNMP-compliant (Simple Network-Management Protocol) network-management systems.
"The combination of our products with C-COR's RF
amplifiers, 'Navicor' nodes, network-management systems, network-design and activation
capabilities and Internet-enabling technical services form a total set of product and
service solutions for customers throughout the full broadband-network life cycle,"
SVCI chairman Mary Fong said in a prepared statement.
Woodle said SVCI's manufacturing operations would move to
C-COR's base in State College, Pa., after the transaction closes, which is expected this
summer.
