Sycamore Networks ends its run

Sycamore Networks, at one time a major contender in the optical switch market, confirmed late last week that it had filed its certificate of dissolution with the State of Delaware to complete the process of liquidating the company. The filing had been expected for some time, as Sycamore sold its intelligent bandwidth management unit last month and has been in the process of dialing down its operations.

The certificate of dissolution closes the stock trading books on a company that debuted on the public stock market not long before the massive technology bubble burst at the beginning of the 21st Century. Over the next few years, Sycamore was among many vendors that suffered from sharp declines in capital spending by the major telecom carriers.

It might be considered something of an admirable feat that the Chelmsford, Mass.-based company managed to limp on for another decade after that radical spending shift, which erased many other vendor names from the industry. More recently, however, software defined networking and virtualization have begun to change the rules in the optical switching sector.

Marlin Equity Partners acquired the intelligent bandwidth management unit for just over $18 million in early February, a sale which cleared the decks for Sycamore to close its doors. Marlin has since begun to combine the unit with the optical business it acquired from Nokia Siemens Networks, so it appears some of Sycamore's technology will continue to live on.

For more:
- here's the press release

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Marlin Equity Partners bought the last piece of Sycamore last month
Marlin also bought the optical unit of Nokia Siemens Networks