JDSU

Last updated
JDS Uniphase Corporation
Company type Public
Nasdaq: JDSU
Industry Optical products and broadband communications
Predecessors
  • JDS Fitel
  • Uniphase Corporation (1999)
Founded1981  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Defunct2015
FateSplit into Viavi Solutions and Lumentum Holdings
Successors
  • Viavi Solutions
  • Lumentum Holdings
Headquarters Milpitas, California, USA [1]
Number of locations
80 offices, serving customers in more than 160 countries
Key people
Thomas H. Waechter [1]
(CEO, President and Director)
David W. Vellequette
(CFO)
Products
  • Communications test and measurement equipment; optical communications components, modules, and subsystems.
  • Lasers used for biotechnology, semiconductor manufacturing, and materials processing.
  • Thin film coatings, components, and assemblies used to manage light for displays, instrumentation, office automation, and aerospace/defense.
  • Optical solutions for brand protection and document authentication; and decorative coatings for brand enhancement and differentiation
RevenueDecrease2.svg US$ 1.709 billion (2015) [2]
Decrease2.svg US$ -88.1 million (2015) [2]
Decrease2.svg US$ -88.1 million (2015) [2]
Total assets Decrease2.svg US$ 2.218 billion (2015) [2]
Total equity Decrease2.svg US$ 1.101 billion (2015) [2]
Number of employees
5,100 (2015) [1]
Website JDSU.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 1 August 2015)

JDS Uniphase Corporation (JDSU) was an American company that designed and manufactured products for optical communications networks, communications test and measurement equipment, lasers, optical solutions for authentication and decorative applications, and other custom optics. It was headquartered in Milpitas, California. In August 2015, JDSU split into two different companies – Viavi Solutions and Lumentum Holdings. [3]

Contents

History

Uniphase was started in 1979 in a San Jose, California garage, and made lasers for chip makers and scanners. [4]

In 1981, JDS Optics was founded in Ottawa, Ontario by Philip Garel-Jones, Gary Duck, Jozef Straus, and Bill Sinclair. The "JDS" is short for Jones, Duck and Straus/Sinclair. [5] The company became JDS Fitel when it formed a partnership with Fitel, a fiber optic and optical connector company. [6]

In 1999, JDSU was formed by the merger between JDS Fitel and Uniphase, [7] and it became known as JDS Uniphase subsequent to the merger. [8]

Three other major fiber companies were acquired by JDS Uniphase during the telecom boom – Optical Coating Laboratory Inc. (OCLI), bought for $6.2 billion and based in Santa Rosa, California, [9] E-TEK Dynamics, bought for $15 billion, and SDL, bought for $45 billion, both based in San Jose, California. [10]

In 2003, CEO Straus retired, and the company moved its headquarters to San Jose, California, to consolidate its business. [11]

On August 3, 2005, the company acquired test and measurement equipment company Acterna for $760 million, which became part of JDSU's Test and Measurement Group. [12] Acterna had been formed by the May 2000 merger of network test solutions developer Wavetek Wandel Goltermann (WWG) and hand-held test equipment developer TTC. [13]

In 2006, the company moved its headquarters to Milpitas, California.[ citation needed ]

In December 2013, the company announced it was acquiring fellow network performance management company Network Instruments, for $200 million. [14]

On August 1, 2015, JDSU split into Viavi Solutions and Lumentum Holdings Inc. [15]

Stock

During the 1990s, JDS Uniphase stock was a high-flyer tech stock investor favorite. Its stock price doubled three times and three stock splits of 2:1 occurred roughly every 90 days during the last half of 1999 through early 2000, making millionaires of many employees who were stock option holders, and further enabling JDS Uniphase to go on an acquisition and merger binge. After a downturn in the telecom industry as part of the dot com bubble, JDS Uniphase announced in late July 2001 the largest (up to then) write-down of goodwill. Employment soon dropped as part of the Global Realignment Program from nearly 29,000 to approximately 5,300, many of its factories and facilities were closed around the world, and the stock price dropped from $153 per share to less than $2 per share.

On September 23, 2005, JDSU announced a reverse stock split one-to-eight. [16]

Shareholder litigation

After the 2001 crash of the telecommunications industry, the state of Connecticut filed a lawsuit against the company and four key executives, claiming that they had misled and hid from company shareholders advance knowledge of the company's impending downturn. Unlike most similar lawsuits, which are dismissed or settled before trial, Connecticut's lawsuit went to trial in October, 2007. JDSU was acquitted of all charges in November, 2007. [17]

Related Research Articles

Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business unit of AT&T Corporation, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reliance Communications</span> Indian telecommunications company

Reliance Communications Limited (RCOM) was an Indian mobile network provider headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra that offered voice and 2G and 3G and 4G data services. In February 2019, the company filed for bankruptcy as it was unable to sell assets to repay its debt. It has an estimated debt of ₹500 billion against assets worth ₹180 billion.

Bay Networks, Inc., was a network hardware vendor formed through the merger of Santa Clara, California, based SynOptics Communications and Billerica, Massachusetts based Wellfleet Communications on July 6, 1994. SynOptics was an important early innovator of Ethernet products, having developed a pre-standard twisted pair 10 Mbit/s Ethernet product and a modular Ethernet hub product that dominated the enterprise networking market. Wellfleet was an important competitor to Cisco Systems in the router market, ultimately commanding up to a 20% market share of the network router business worldwide. The combined company was renamed Bay Networks, as SynOptics was based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Wellfleet in Greater Boston, nearby to Massachusetts Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ChromaFlair</span> Pigment used in paint systems

ChromaFlair is a pigment used in paint systems, primarily for automobiles. When the paint is applied, it changes color depending on the light source and viewing angle. It was created at Optical Coating Laboratory, Inc. (OCLI) [later JDS Uniphase and Viavi Solutions] in 1979 and is used by DuPont and PPG.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hibernia Networks</span> American telecommunications company

Hibernia Networks, alternately known as Hibernia Atlantic, was a privately held, US-owned provider of telecommunication services. It operated global network routes on self-healing rings in North America, Europe and Asia including submarine communications cable systems in the North Atlantic Ocean which connected Canada, the United States, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. Hibernia managed cable landing stations in Dublin, Republic of Ireland; Coleraine, Northern Ireland; Southport, England; Halifax, Canada; Lynn, Massachusetts, United States.

KLA Corporation is an American capital equipment company based in Milpitas, California. It supplies process control and yield management systems for the semiconductor industry and other related nanoelectronics industries. The company's products and services are intended for all phases of wafer, reticle, integrated circuit (IC) and packaging production, from research and development to final volume manufacturing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fastweb (telecommunications company)</span> Italian telecommunications company

FASTWEB S.p.A. is an Italian telecommunications company that provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadband Internet and IPTV services. It is also one of the prominent companies in Italy providing FTTH connections, and is a subsidiary of the Swiss telecommunication company Swisscom AG.

Ciena Corporation is an American networking systems and software company based in Hanover, Maryland. The company has been described by The Baltimore Sun as the "world's biggest player in optical connectivity". The company reported revenues of $3.63 billion and more than 8,000 employees, as of October 2022. Gary Smith serves as president and chief executive officer (CEO).

Spirent Communications plc is a British multinational telecommunications testing company headquartered in Crawley, West Sussex, in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windstream Holdings</span> Provider of voice and data network communications

Windstream Holdings, Inc., also doing business as Windstream Communications or Windstream, is a provider of voice and data network communications, and managed services, to businesses in the United States. The company also offers residential broadband, phone and digital streaming TV services to consumers within its coverage area. It is the ninth largest residential telephone provider in the country with service covering more than 8.1 million people in 21 states.

da Vinci Systems was an American digital cinema company founded in 1984 in Coral Springs, Florida as a spinoff of Video Tape Associates. It was known for its hardware-based color correction products, GPU-based color grading, digital mastering systems, and film restoration and remastering systems. It was one of the earliest pioneers in post-production products. The company was owned by Dynatech Corporation for the majority of its lifespan until being bought by JDS Uniphase in 2005 and by Blackmagic Design in 2009.

ADVA Optical Networking SE was a European telecommunications vendor that provides network equipment for data, storage, voice and video services. It was founded in 1994 by Brian Protiva. On August 30, 2021, it was announced that ADVA and Adtran Holdings would be merging, continuing business under the name Adtran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MACOM Technology Solutions</span> American semiconductor manufacturer

MACOM Technology Solutions, Inc. is a developer and producer of radio, microwave, and millimeter wave semiconductor devices and components. The company is headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, and in 2005 was Lowell's largest private employer. MACOM is certified to the ISO 9001 international quality standard and ISO 14001 environmental standard. The company has design centers and sales offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Wavetek was an electronic test equipment manufacturer that made function generators, signal generators and service monitors. Although Wavetek did not invent the function generator, it made them commercially popular. The company faced a decline starting in the late 1970s, which eventually resulted in their sale to Torrey Investments in 1991. Since then, they have continued to produce low-cost digital instrumentation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DZS</span>

DZS Inc. is a provider of fiber access and optical telecommunications networking and cloud software technology. The company was founded in 1999. It is headquartered in Plano. DZS is ISO 9001:2008 certified in the manufacture and service of telecommunications equipment.

David F. Welch is an American businessman and research scientist. Welch is a pioneer in the field of optical devices and optical transport systems for telecommunications networks. Welch first made it possible to commercially deploy reliable 980 nm laser pumps, needed in low noise optical amplifiers employed in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) telecommunications systems. He also achieved the first commercial optoelectronics integrated circuit, several years ahead of any competing research or developments laboratory.

NeoPhotonics Corporation is an American public corporation based in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1996. The company develops, manufactures and sells optoelectronic products that transmit, receive and switch high speed digital optical signals for communications networks, These products include transceivers, tunable lasers, high bandwidth receivers, optical semiconductors, photonic integrated circuits, and 100 gigabit per second and above modules." These are each "cost-effective components that handle massive amounts of data at very high speeds".

Viavi Solutions Inc., formerly part of JDS Uniphase Corporation (JDSU), is an American network test, measurement and assurance technology company based in Chandler, Arizona. The company manufactures testing and monitoring equipment for networks. It also develops optical technology used for a range of applications including material quality control, currency anti-counterfeiting and 3D motion sensing, including Microsoft's Kinect video game controller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inphi Corporation</span> American technology company

Inphi Corporation is an American company that produces 10G-800G high-speed analog and mixed-signal semiconductor components and optical subsystems to networking original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), optical module, cloud and telecom service providers. Its headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California. Inphi develops linear transimpedance amplifiers, modulator drivers, optical physical layer devices, coherent DSPs, and silicon photonic-based subsystems for long haul, metro, and data center applications. As of April 20, 2021, the company was acquired by Marvell Technology, Inc.

Dynatech Corporation, originally Microtech Research Corporation, was an American technology corporation originally based in Burlington, Massachusetts, that owned a wide variety of manufacturing subsidiaries across multiple industries, including biomedical equipment, video and broadcast hardware and software, scientific instrumentation, and telecommunications testing, among others. It was founded by 1959 by a pair of MIT researchers and soon grew into a multifaceted corporation, helped along by dozens of acquisitions of small niche manufacturers across the United States. At its peak in the early 1990s, the company posted over $500 million in sales, largely generated from its video and telecommunications businesses. Following poor performance in the mid-1990s, the company divested many of its redundant businesses, culminating in its purchase by a private equity company in 1997. In 2000, it began trading as Acterna Corporation. The company was acquired by JDS Uniphase in 2005 and folded.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "More On JDSU; Profile". Yahoo! Finance. July 1, 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "FY11 Form 10-K". Viavi Solutions Inc. 2015-08-25. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  3. ↑ "Biz Break: JDS Uniphase plans to split in two, focus on software-defined networking". The Mercury News. 2014-09-10. Retrieved 2021-05-28.
  4. ↑ Malik, Om (2003-05-30). Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist . John Wiley & Sons. p.  284. ISBN   0471434051. uniphase 1979.
  5. ↑ "THE SPEED OF LIGHT". theglobeandmail.com. 2009-03-21. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  6. ↑ "What's new with JDSU in Ottawa?". obj.ca. 2013-05-03. Archived from the original on 2016-10-14. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  7. ↑ "Uniphase and JDS Fitel Agree to Merge". The New York Times . 1999-01-29. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  8. ↑ "JDS Fitel merges with U.S. company". cbc.ca. 1999-01-29. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  9. ↑ "Evolving JDS Uniphase to acquire OCLI". laserfocusworld.com. 1999-11-15. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  10. ↑ "Gorilla In the Midst JDS Uniphase is poised to become king of the fiber-optics jungle. Is it too late to swing along?". fortune.com. 2000-08-14. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  11. ↑ "JDS to shut Ottawa HQ as Straus departs". theglobeandmail.com. 2003-08-22. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  12. ↑ "JDS Uniphase jumps into triple-play testing with Acterna acquisition". lightwaveonline.com. 2005-05-24. Retrieved 2016-11-09.
  13. ↑ "JDS Uniphase jumps into triple-play testing with Acterna acquisition". frost.com. 2005-03-08. Archived from the original on 2016-11-10. Retrieved 2016-11-09.
  14. ↑ "JDSU Acquires Network Instruments". Light Reading. lightreading.com. 2013-12-11. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  15. ↑ "Viavi Solutions, Lumentum begin life as JDSU is no more". lightwaveonline.com. 2013-08-03. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  16. ↑ "JDS Uniphase stock: Just walk on by". usatoday.com. 2010-08-26. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
  17. ↑ Chris O'Brien (November 27, 2007). "Jury clears former JDSU execs". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 2016-10-13.

Litigation references

37°26′11″N121°55′23″W / 37.4365°N 121.923°W / 37.4365; -121.923

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.