Akara, which has been around since late 2000, specializes in gear that extends SANs over Sonet networks, thus letting companies extend metro data backup (see Akara Hacks Headcount, and SANs See Sonet).
Akara was one of the first players in this segment, which Ciena estimates to be worth about $300 million to $400 million of the $1 billion-or-so overall SAN market (see Akara to Challenge Optera?, and Akara Completes Successful Trials). Though Ciena execs acknowledged Akara will add about $1 million to the company's quarterly burn rate, execs said it could contribute to a $3 billion potential market for Ciena in the long term.
Akara faces a growing list of competitors, though, including Alcatel SA (NYSE: ALA; Paris: CGEP:PA), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), LightSand Communications Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU), and Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE/Toronto: NT) (see Nortel Pipes SANs Into Sonet).
Akara will stay in its Ottawa, Ontario, headquarters at its present headcount of around 50, Ciena says. It will become Ciena's newly hatched Enterprise Services Group, which will be headed by Akara CEO Edward Ogonek. Initially, Ciena will probably report Akara sales with metro transport revenues.
The boards of Ciena and Akara have approved the deal, as have the stockholders of Akara. Ciena stockholder approval isn't needed on this one, execs said.
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