CEO Interview: Ciena Corporation - Tom Mock

• On 4:19 pm EST, Monday November 2, 2009

67 WALL STREET, New York - November 2, 2009 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Telecommunications Services & Equipment Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This 20-page feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

Topics covered: Telecom Carriers VS. Telecom Equipment Vendors - Increased Competition Hurts Profitability Among Telecom Carriers - Net Neutrality Battle - New Telecom Players Apple & Google - High-Growth Opportunity In Latin American Market - Rural Local Exchange Carriers - Fierce Wireless Competition - Significant Deceleration In Wireless Subscriber Growth - Upgrade To 4G - Secular Decline In RLEC Sector - Regulatory Environment - Unlimited Pay-In-Advance Segment Is Fastest-Growing In Wireless

Companies include: Ciena Corporation (CIEN); ERF Wireless (ERFW.OB); AT&T (T); Alcatel (ALU); Apple (AAPL); CenturyLink (CTL); Clearwire (RLWR); Comcast (CMCSK); Consolidated Communications (CNSL); Frontier Communications (FTR); Google (GOOG); Intel (INTC); Iowa Telecom (IWA); Knology (KNOL); Leap Wireless (LEAP); Liberty Global (LBTYA); MetroPCS (PCS); Millicom (MICC); NII Holdings (NIHD); Nortel (NTL); Sprint (S); T-Mobile (DT); Telefonica (TEF); Tellabs (TLAB); Time Warner Cable (TWC); Time Warner Cable (TWX); TracFone (AMX); Verizon (VZ); Wal-Mart (WMT); Windstream (WIN).

In the following brief excerpt from the 20-page report, Thomas Mock, CEO of Ciena Corporation, discusses the outlook for the sector and for investors.

THOMAS MOCK is currently Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning, for Ciena Corporation. In this role he is responsible for defining the company's market strategy and supporting product definition, requirements and marketing of Ciena's portfolio of networking solutions. Prior to assuming this position, Mr. Mock served as the company's Vice President of Portfolio Management and previously as Senior Director of Product Management. He also served as Product Marketing Director for Ciena's short-haul and access product lines after joining the company in 1997 as the International Product Marketing Manager. Prior to Ciena, Mr. Mock managed the product development organization for a T1 multiplexer company. Mr. Mock received his B.S.E.E. from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

TWST: Would you give us a basic overview of Ciena Corporation (CIEN)?

Mr. Mock: Firstly, we are a company that isn't of the breadth of a company like Alcatel-Lucent. Rather, we have some very specific technology that we apply to next-generation networks, particularly to Ethernet environments. For example, with AT&T, we've helped build the world's largest automated optical switching network. With BT, we've helped modernize their infrastructure as part of the 21CN network initiative. Basically, for us, it's about taking a good strong heritage and pedigree of innovation and technology development, and addressing today's network problems.

TWST: What are your primary products and who do they serve?

Mr. Mock: Most of our products are designed for service provider networks. By service provider, I mean communications providers like AT&T and typically for what I would call the wireline portion of a network. Even though we do have some equipment for the land-based part of wireless networks, most of our focus is on the wireline network. However, we also do some business with large enterprises and government agencies that build out private networks. The type of products we make are those that either create or increase network transmission capacity, typically fiber optic-type equipment or products that switch and manage that capacity.

TWST: What are some of the advantages of using Ciena's network solutions?

Mr. Mock: We really focus on two primary things: making networks simpler and making networks smarter. When I say simpler, it's about converging a number of different functions onto a single device. So for example, doing fiber optic transport and electronic switching in a single device. And the other element is about automation. In other words, enabling the devices that are installed in all these locations around the network to talk to each other and decide amongst themselves how they are to behave, versus them having someone go out there and configure each particular element. When you talk about what we specialize in, it's about making a network simpler, making it more automated.

TWST: One of your markets is the enterprise sector. Why did you decide to serve this sector?

Mr. Mock: We are at a point now with the large enterprises where their communications networks are becoming a critical part of how they differentiate themselves. As an example, I would point to a recent installation of 100-gigabit transport equipment that we did for the New York Stock Exchange. That was really all about allowing them to cope with the rapidly increasing amounts of trading business, predominantly high-frequency trading, so they can execute transactions faster than competitors. At the end of the day, for them being able to handle more transactions faster gives them a stronger competitive advantage.

TWST: One exciting development for Ciena is your bid to acquire Nortel's Metro Ethernet Network business. Tell us about that.

Mr. Mock: We are primarily interested in the technology, the capabilities, the customer base and the talent. The resources they have can help us execute on our strategy two to three years faster. This idea of building simpler Ethernet-oriented, automated networks is something we've been in the middle of for several years now. And a lot of the things that Nortel is working on are very complementary to what we're doing. As a result, bringing those two assets together would let us get to where we want from a revenue perspective, from a customer perspective, from a technology perspective, two to three years faster than we would have been able to do by ourselves.

The Wall Street Transcript is a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs and research analysts. This 20-page special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online .

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