Ciena

Ciena Our passion is to provide rewarding experiences that result in exceptional outcomes—for you, and for your end-users. As a network strategy and technology company, we apply technology in the context of your world—working to activate your agenda and make a meaningful difference.When Ciena incorporated in November 1992, its mission was to radically change the economics of telecommunications networks. Initially, the company significantly advanced innovation by pioneering Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology as a means to split light across fiber optic lines, thereby enabling the transport of greater volumes of information such as voice, video, and data across communications networks. This technology breakthrough propelled Ciena to rapid success, leading service providers like Sprint and MCI WorldCom to deploy Ciena’s solutions throughout their nationwide networks in the 1990s. It also led to Ciena’s initial public offering in February 1997, during which the company achieved a market capitalization of $3.4 billion—the largest first-day market capitalization of any venture-funded startup company to that date. Leveraging its achievements in DWDM, Ciena continued to revolutionize the fields of optical transport, intelligent optical switching, and software tools for automating large-scale communications networks. For example, in 1998, Ciena’s 96-channel DWDM system, also referred to as a long-haul optical transport platform, enabled a service provider to transmit almost 3.1 million phone calls across a single fiber pair—enough capacity at the time to carry the voice traffic of all major long-distance carriers combined. By the end of 1999, Ciena was on an impressive growth trajectory, selling its next-generation network equipment to some of the largest carriers worldwide. In fiscal 2001, Ciena achieved annual revenues of $1.6 billion and its market capitalization reached nearly $30 billion, based largely on the success of a single