The board of directors of JDSU unanimously approved a plan to separate JDSU into two publicly traded companies; JDSU said the split is expected to be completed by the third quarter of calendar-year 2015. The two companies will be a network and service enablement (NSE) company as well as communications and commercial optical products (CCOP) company. Network and cabling test equipment will be part of the NSE company, as will JDSU’s current optical security and performance (OSP) products business.
When announcing the planned split, JDSU said the NSE company “will be a leader in its core businesses, addressing an approximate $7-billion network and service enablement market expected to grow at 6 to 8 percent annually. The NSE company will primarily focus its investments in higher-growth markets, particularly software supporting virtualized and software-defined networks.” The CCOP company, “with its long-standing reputation for optical innovation and quality,” the company said, “serves a $7.4-billion optical communications market expected to grow at a compounded rate of 11 percent over the next four years. It also addresses an approximate $2.5-billion commercial lasers market, growing at a forecasted 7 percent annually.”
The company said it expects the separation will “enable NSE to continue its leadership in network enablement, while continuing to transition to a more software-centric company aligned with the industry’s rapid shift to software-defined networks.
“Driven by the proliferation of connected devices and applications running on the network, and the need for increased network visibility, SDN is expected to influence 30 to 40 percent of all network spending over the next six years,” JDSU continued, citing SDN Central for that spending projection. “Included in this new company will be JDSU’s OSP business, a leader in anti-counterfeiting solutions for currency authentication and high-value optical components and instruments for security, safety, electronics and other applications. The combined revenue for NSE and OSP in FY14 was $949.5 million.”
JDSU’s president and chief executive officer Tom Waechter will continue in that role with the standalone NSE company.