Ciena Q4 hurt by economic trends

Optical and carrier Ethernet vendor Ciena reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings that showed a 17 percent year-over-year revenue decline to $179.7 million. That was apparently worse than many analysts expected, even after Ciena issued a warning on its Q4 revenue outlook back in September. Ciena CEO Gary Smith said in a statement that overall macroeconomic difficulties are causing capital spending caution among its carrier customers.

Carriers indeed have been warning that they will spend less in 2009, beginning with AT&T, which sounded a loud warning bell last week. Ciena's fiscal quarterly report is the first earnings report to be issued by a major network equipment vendor since the AT&T announcement. We will begin to see seasonal fourth quarter earnings reports next month.

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- Light Reading has this story

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