Ciena Corporation is a network technology company, providing hardware, software, and services to a wide range of network operators and enabling enhanced network capacity, service delivery, and automation.
The company’s solutions support network traffic across a wide range of applications, including cloud, video, data, artificial intelligence (‘AI’), and voice. The company’s network solutions are used globally by communications service providers, cable and multiservice operators, cloud providers...
Ciena Corporation is a network technology company, providing hardware, software, and services to a wide range of network operators and enabling enhanced network capacity, service delivery, and automation.
The company’s solutions support network traffic across a wide range of applications, including cloud, video, data, artificial intelligence (‘AI’), and voice. The company’s network solutions are used globally by communications service providers, cable and multiservice operators, cloud providers, submarine network operators, governments, and enterprises across multiple industry verticals.
The company’s portfolio is designed to enable the Adaptive Network, which is the company’s intention for a network end state that leverages a programmable and scalable network infrastructure, driven by software control and automation capabilities, that is informed by network analytics and intelligence. By using the company’s network solutions to transform network infrastructures into dynamic, programmable environments driven by automation and analytics, network operators can realize greater business agility, adapt dynamically to changing end-user service demands, rapidly introduce new revenue-generating services, and scale networks to meet increased traffic demands. The company’s solutions are also designed to enable network operators to gain valuable, real-time network insights, allowing them to optimize network performance and maximize the return on their network infrastructure investment.
The company’s solutions include Networking Platforms, including its Optical Networking portfolio and the company’s Routing and Switching portfolio, which can be applied from the network core to end-user access points, and which allow network operators to scale capacity, increase transmission speeds, allocate traffic efficiently, and adapt dynamically to changing end-user service demands. The company’s Optical Networking portfolio includes products that support long haul and regional networks, submarine and data center interconnect networks, and metro and edge networks. The company’s Routing and Switching portfolio includes products and solutions that enable efficient Internet Protocol (‘IP’) transport in next-generation metro core, aggregation, and access networks, including converged IP, optical, and fiber-based broadband access applications.
To complement the company’s Networking Platforms, the company offers Platform Software, which includes its Navigator Network Control Software (‘Navigator NCS’) (formerly known as Manage, Control and Plan (‘MCP’)) and advanced applications that deliver multi-layer domain control and operations for network operators.
Through the company’s Blue Planet Automation Software, the company also enables complete service lifecycle management automation with productized operational support systems (‘OSS’), including inventory, orchestration, and assurance solutions that help the company’s customers to achieve closed loop automation across multi-vendor and multi-domain environments.
In addition to the company’s systems and software, the company offers a broad range of services that help its customers build, operate, and improve their networks and associated operational environments. These include network transformation, consulting, implementation, systems integration, maintenance, network operations center (NOC) management, learning, and optimization services.
Strategy
The company’s strategy is to leverage its optical technology leadership to drive the profitable growth of the company’s business and to expand its addressable market into complementary and adjacent network applications, in particular with respect to opportunities to apply coherent technologies inside and around the data center. The key pillars of the company’s strategy are to expand leadership in optical networking; grow addressable market in next generation metro and edge networking solutions; drive software-led transformation; and deliver innovative global services.
Customers and Markets
The company sells its product and service solutions through direct and indirect sales channels to network operators in the following customer and market segments:
Communications Service Providers. The company’s communications service provider customers include regional, metro, national and international wireline and wireless carriers, and access network providers.
Cloud Providers. The company’s cloud provider customers – also referred to in its markets as web-scale or hyper-scale providers – include internet content providers and providers of internet services and infrastructure, including data centers, cloud compute, SaaS, storage, AI, and web hosting services. In addition to their direct purchases, these customers are also significant purchasers of capacity on submarine and wireline networks globally, and they heavily influence networking solution alternatives by other network operators, including communications service providers.
Cable and Multiservice Operators (MSO). The company’s customers include regional, metro, national, and international cable and multiservice operators.
Submarine Network Operators. The company’s customers include service providers, cloud providers, and consortia operators of submarine communications networks across the globe.
Enterprises. The company’s enterprise customers include large, multi-site commercial organizations, including participants in the financial, healthcare, transportation, utilities, energy, and retail industries.
Government and Research & Education. The company’s government customers include federal, state, and local agencies, as well as large, advanced research and education networks.
Products and Services
The company’s portfolio of products and services, which is designed to enable its Adaptive Network vision, includes the solutions described below within the company’s Networking Platforms, Platform Software and Services, Blue Planet Automation Software and Services, and Global Services operating segments. The company also offers solutions that bring together multiple products and services from across its operating segments and portfolios to address key customer use cases and infrastructure needs with an aim to enable the company’s customers to evolve their existing network environments.
Networking Platforms
The company’s Networking Platforms segment consists of the company’s Optical Networking and Routing and Switching portfolios.
Optical Networking. The company’s Optical Networking portfolio includes a range of products and solutions that use the company’s WaveLogic coherent optical technology and the company’s intelligent photonics solutions and are optimized for the convergence of coherent optical transport, open optical networking, Optical Transport Network (‘OTN’) switching and IP routing and switching.
The company’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform provides a flexible and scalable converged multi-layer transport solution that adds capacity to core, regional, metro and submarine networks and enables efficient data transport at high transmission speeds. This platform provides leading coherent wavelength capacities, from 100 gigabits per second (‘100G’) to 1.6 terabits per second (‘1.6T’), along with a flexible photonic layer and multi-layer control plane capabilities for scale and service differentiation. This platform, which includes several chassis sizes and a comprehensive set of line cards optimized for individual services or applications, can be used throughout the network, from customer premises to access and metropolitan networks, regional and core networks, and submarine cable landing sites.
The company’s Waveserver family of products consists of compact, modular interconnect platforms that allow network operators to scale bandwidth and support high-bandwidth interconnect applications, such as high-speed data transfer from 100G to 1.6T, content delivery, including encrypted data transfer between data centers. Waveserver is purpose-built to address disaggregated transponder, data center and general space-constrained applications, using a small footprint and low power design. With its modern software architecture, open application programming interfaces (‘APIs’), and common data models, Waveserver is easy to operate and integrate into existing networks and facilitates deployment of on-demand cloud and high-capacity connectivity services.
The company’s 6500 Reconfigurable Line System (‘RLS’) is a compact, disaggregated, open intelligent photonic layer line system that improves scalability, reduces footprint, and offers flexibility and programmability. Its applications include subsea, long-haul and metro networks and data center interconnection and general network modernization and simplification. It offers increased fiber capacity through automated and integrated C- and L-band deployments and provides highly dense, remote optical add/drop multiplexing and switching features that enable network operators to react to unpredictable traffic requirements by scaling connectivity and capacity.
The company’s coherent-optimized edge line system, Coherent ELS, is a high-capacity disaggregated line system that is designed to address next-generation access photonic line system requirements, including the transport of coherent wavelengths originating from pluggables, through a compact, hardened form factor designed to accommodate outside plant deployments. With a focus on reducing operational complexity, the company’s Coherent ELS open line system (OLS) uses integrated intelligence and automation to simplify and scale deployments.
The company’s O-NID is a purpose-built edge OTN demarcation device that modernizes OTN networks by delivering OTN to the edge in a compact, hardened form factor that is designed to flexibly address a range of applications while reducing space and power. The O-NID allows network providers to seamlessly extend the reach of their OTN networks closer to the edge and customer premises where space and power are limited and can efficiently deliver gigabit ethernet 1GbE/10GbE/100GbE services and 100/200G waves to the customer premises with a solution that simplifies deployments, service turn-up, and management.
The company also offers footprint-optimized coherent pluggable transceivers, which utilize its WaveLogic technology, to address next-generation access, metro, regional and data center interconnect network applications, which are supported across both its systems and third-party equipment. The company’s opportunities with high-performance coherent pluggable transceivers are reflected within the Optical Networking product line of the company’s Networking Platforms segment.
The company also offers its 5400 family of Packet-Optical Platforms, which provide for optical transport, traffic aggregation at the network edge and switching that are optimized for handoff at the network core.
Routing and Switching. The company’s Routing and Switching portfolio includes products and solutions that enable next-generation metro, access and aggregation, or ‘edge’ networks, including solutions that allow customers to simplify their network designs while delivering new, revenue-generating services. These products route, aggregate, and switch IP-based traffic to support applications including IP services, Ethernet business services, cell site routing, mobile cross-haul, converged haul, 5G, fiber-based access networks, and residential broadband access. The company’s Routing and Switching products are based on the company’s Adaptive IP approach, which delivers end-to-end IP-based services in an automated and more simplified manner than traditional IP network designs. The company’s Routing and Switching products enable operators to achieve improved network cost effectiveness, including reduced costs associated with power and space, as compared to more complex, traditional IP routing.
Central to the company’s Routing and Switching platforms is its SAOS next-gen IP network operating system, which provides the software-based capabilities to support 5G, IP VPN services, access, PON, converged interconnect network (CIN) architectures, and coherent routing applications in the company’s portfolio. SAOS provides automation-friendly intelligence and operational data to enable network-level programmability supported by open standards.
The company’s 3000 family of Service Delivery Platforms and its 5000 family of Service Aggregation Platforms support network access and aggregation, respectively, and have been principally deployed to support IP and Ethernet business services, wireless front haul, backhaul, and mid-backhaul applications, and residential broadband applications. The company’s 3000 family of platforms are purpose-built to fit small to large customer sites, as well as multi-tenant offices, residential buildings or homes, and edge office or outside plant applications. The company’s 5000 family provides aggregation to fill higher capacity links within both the metro access and aggregation tiers of networks, allowing operators to reduce the number of router assets required in the core and to better implement edge cloud architectures.
The company’s 8100 Coherent Routing platforms combine high-capacity multi-terabit IP routing and switching from 1 gigabit ethernet (‘GbE’) to 400GbE with high capacity WaveLogic 5 Nano coherent optical transport from 100/200/400GbE for next-generation metro and edge applications.
The company’s WaveRouter is a purpose-built coherent metro router designed to converge IP and Optical layers in the metro network. WaveRouter can flexibly scale Wide Area Network (‘WAN’) traffic from 6-192T, with the ability to scale up and out, delivering capacity when and where needed. With optional WaveLogic capabilities, WaveRouter can support dense, high-capacity coherent routing and switching metro applications.
The company’s Vyatta virtual routing and switching technology and products include a cloud-grade router and software for enterprise and cloud networks that enable hardware-like routing performance for enterprises across multi-cloud and virtualized edge networks. This scalable and modular software can be deployed as a Virtual Machine (VM) application as well as in virtualized and disaggregated network environment.
The company’s 6500 Packet Transport System (‘PTS’) combines packet switching, control plane operation, and integrated optics. Together with the company’s 3900 platforms, PTS enables the company’s service provider customers to migrate their legacy TDM (SONET/SDH/PDH) services to a scalable, lower operational cost packet solution.
The company’s Routing and Switching portfolio includes its fiber-based broadband access solutions. The company’s microplug OLT transceiver combines PON hardware and software for integration into a router to support broadband and other applications. The company’s Routing and Switching portfolio also includes cloud-native software solutions, including a virtual Broadband Network Gateway for access network. The company’s 3800 family of ONUs support fiber-based PON broadband access service delivery to residential or enterprise locations.
The company’s Routing and Switching portfolio also includes its 8700 Packetwave Platform, a multi-terabit packet switching platform for high-density metro networks and inter-data center wide area networks.
Platform Software and Services
The company’s software offerings also include its Platform Software, which provides domain control management, analytics, data and planning tools and applications to assist customers in managing their networks, including by creating more efficient operations and more proactive visibility into their networks. The company’s Platform Software includes:
Navigator NCS. Navigator NCS software provides intelligent, multi-layer network control of the company’s routing, switching and optical solutions, enabling simplification, acceleration and automation of multi-layer network operations. The company’s Navigator NCS domain controller provides fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security management for multi-layer, multi-vendor networks, in combination with services management and online network planning. Navigator NCS simplifies multi-layer lifecycle operations – including equipment commissioning, service provisioning, service assurance and performance monitoring. Navigator NCS uses Generative AI applications and analytics to allow customers to adopt AI operations approaches in their management of their networks.
Navigator NCS Apps. The company’s suite of Navigator NCS applications integrate software control and analytics applications in a unified interface that provides network performance data. Through the company’s suite of Navigator NCS applications and open APIs, Navigator NCS software can integrate into network operators’ OSS and business processes, supporting the company’s customers’ journeys towards automation of end-to-end operational workflows.
Platform Software Services. To complement the company’s Platform Software portfolio, the company offers a range of related services that include software subscription services, consulting, network migration and integration, installation and upgrade support services, and technical support relating to the company’s Platform Software offerings. These services are focused on enabling the company’s customers to operate their Ciena networks most efficiently and to modernize their operations.
The company’s Platform Software offering also includes planning tools, as well as a number of legacy software solutions, including the company’s OneControl unified management system, that support the company’s installed base of network solutions. As the company achieves further customer adoption of its Navigator NCS software platform, and as the company transitions features, functionality and customers to that platform, the company expects revenue to decline for its legacy Platform Software solutions.
Blue Planet Automation Software and Services
The company’s Blue Planet Automation Software is a comprehensive, cloud native, standards-based software portfolio that enables the company’s service provider customers to accelerate their digital transformation. The company’s Blue Planet product applications are open and modular, and can be deployed either individually or in any combination on a single cloud-native platform. These applications include:
Blue Planet Inventory (‘BPI’). By integrating or ‘federating’ data from multiple inventory systems and presenting it in a single dynamic view, BPI allows real-time visibility into the end-to-end topology and status of network, cloud, and service resources. Integrating with legacy OSS, BPI helps network providers simplify key operational processes such as service fulfillment, network planning, and service assurance. Through its comprehensive inventory of network services, devices, and virtual functions, BPI allows for observation of AI, analytics, assurance and other critical technologies in designing, planning, and operating a network.
Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO). Network infrastructures are consisted of multiple technology layers and domains – such as the radio access network (‘RAN’), data center, cloud, access, transport, and mobile core networks. With new 5G network implementations, it is often complex for network operators to offer automated, end-to-end services in this environment. Blue Planet provides model-driven, intent-based service orchestration across multiple physical and virtual network domains, multiple layers (Optical, Ethernet, IP, SD WAN, PON, Mobile Core, RAN, and slicing), across any set of hardware and software vendors.
Multi-Cloud Orchestration (‘MCO’). Operators are deploying a growing number of cloud-based services to meet the needs of their customers. Blue Planet MCO provides orchestration of Cloud-Native Functions (CNFs), Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and other cloud-based resources. MCO uses an open, vendor-agnostic approach that allows network operators to manage the lifecycle of cloud-based resources within and across multiple clouds and cloud providers.
Route Optimization and Analysis (‘ROA’). ROA combines routing, traffic, and performance analytics for real-time monitoring of IP services across domains and across the cloud. These capabilities provide enhanced network observability capabilities and enable troubleshooting of latent or transient network problems, and modeling, to predict the impact of network infrastructure, service, and workload changes, to build more resilient networks.
Unified Assurance & Analytics (‘UAA’). UAA leverages multi-layer/multi-domain assurance and AI-powered analytics to provide insights into the health and performance of network resources and services, ensuring an end-customer quality of experience and availability to meet dynamic service demands.
Blue Planet Services. To complement the company’s software portfolio, the company offers a range of related services that include professional services for solution customization and OSS integration, software and solution support services, consulting and design, and technical support relating to the company’s software offerings. These services are focused on enhancing network automation and network analytics, enabling multi-vendor integration and support, and implementing programmable multi-domain next-generation networks.
The Blue Planet Automation Software portfolio allows operators to fulfill services rapidly and to meet end-customer quality-of-experience expectations through an entire services lifecycle approach. It also advances network operators towards their vision of self-healing and self-optimizing networks through closed loop automation. The company’s entrance into the market relating to these software automation capabilities remains in the early stages and, accordingly, revenue from the company’s Blue Planet Automation Software and Services segment continues to represent a relatively small portion of the company’s total revenue.
Global Services
The company offers a broad suite of value-added services that help its customers to build, operate, and improve their networks. The company’s services offerings, and its close collaboration with the company’s customers, provide the company with insight into the network and business challenges they face, allowing the company to provide services to meet their desired business outcomes. The company continues to broaden its advanced services capabilities with offerings, including systems integration, multi-vendor migration, and transformation.
The company’s Global Services portfolio includes a range of offerings to meet customer needs and maximize their network infrastructure investment throughout the network lifecycle. These include:
Build. Consulting services to enhance network performance or plan migration to next-generation infrastructures, implementation services to deliver proper planning, design, and deployment services, systems integration services to integrate third-party solutions, and migration services to help customers adopt new technologies and retire legacy equipment;
Operate. Maintenance services that provide end-to-end support for network hardware and software, and managed services to provide management of network infrastructure operations; and
Improve. Optimization services designed to ensure that networks are running at peak performance, and learning services designed to enable customers to understand and operate their networks more effectively.
These services are delivered using a combination of the company’s internal services resources, technical support engineers, and qualified and authorized third-party service partners.
Product Development
To remain competitive, the company must continually invest in and enhance its solutions offerings, addressing new market opportunities, adding new features and functionality, and ensuring alignment with market demand. The company’s product development efforts seek to design and bring to market solutions that embrace the company’s Adaptive Network vision through further advances in programmable systems and software, analytics, and control and automation. Through the company’s development efforts, the company seeks to support network operators as they pursue new business models and sources of revenue from their network infrastructure. The company seeks to develop products aimed at optimizing price for performance, managing power consumption, reducing lifecycle operating costs and space requirements, and minimizing the environmental impact of the company’s customers’ network operations. The company’s approach is also focused on designing products that address a range of emerging consumption models for networking solutions. The company’s development efforts are focused on:
Reinforcing the company’s coherent optical leadership with continued development that advances reach, transmission speed, spectral efficiency, power-per-bit, and service automation and assurance;
Executing on parallel innovation paths for the company’s next generation modem technology, including the company’s WaveLogic6 Extreme and WaveLogic6 Nano offerings;
Delivering on the company’s Adaptive IP approach and extending the IP/routing capabilities and use cases of the company’s Routing and Switching solutions to include converged metro core routing and support for mobile network 5G routing and cross-haul, enterprise edge, and fiber-based access networks for enterprise and residential access service delivery;
Extending capacity of the company’s fiber-based broadband access technologies and solutions;
Investing in photonic line systems and coherent pluggables for application inside and around the data center;
Pursuing development to address different consumption models, including the company’s module, pluggable, and component development initiatives;
Enhancing the company’s Adaptive Network vision through advances in hardware programmability and software-based domain control, automation and analytics through Navigator NCS and purpose-built applications;
Advancing the company’s software-led transformation strategy and product development for its Blue Planet Automation Software to enable generation OSS transformation and closed loop automation;
Developing products that enhance security and reduce risk to the company’s customers’ networks from cyber attacks; and
Delivering products that minimize the lifecycle climate impacts of the company’s customers’ networks and support their sustainability goals.
The company’s research and development efforts are also geared toward portfolio optimization and engineering changes intended to drive product and manufacturing cost reductions across the company’s platforms and enable muti-vendor sourcing of components. The company follows a structured development lifecycle process aiming to supply products that are compliant with emerging security standards. Throughout certain phases of the development lifecycle, including testing and quality assurance, the company leverages AI to increase productivity and to improve development efficiencies.
The company regularly reviews its existing solutions offerings and prospective development of new features, components, or products in order to determine their fit within the company’s portfolio and broader corporate strategy. The company also assesses the market demand, technology evolution, prospective return on investment, and growth opportunities, as well as the costs and resources necessary to develop and support these products. To ensure that the company’s product development investments and solutions offerings are closely aligned with market demand, the company regularly seeks input from customers and promote collaboration among the company’s product development, marketing, and sales organizations. In some cases, where the company seeks to utilize or gain access to complementary or emerging technologies or solutions, the company may obtain technology through an acquisition or, alternatively, through initiatives with third parties pursuant to technology licenses, OEM arrangements, or other strategic technology relationships or investments. In addition, the company participates in industry and standards organizations and, where appropriate, incorporate information from these affiliations throughout the product development process.
Global Customer Engagement
The company’s Global Customer Engagement organization includes a direct and indirect sales, system engineering, and services presence that is organized geographically around the following geographies and customer types: (i) the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America (‘Americas’); (ii) ‘International’, which includes Europe, Middle East and Africa (‘EMEA’) and Asia Pacific, Japan and India (‘APAC’); and (iii) global cloud and content networking customers, which include cloud provider, content, and data center companies. Within each focus area, the company maintains specific teams or personnel that focus on a particular region, country, customer, or market vertical. These teams include sales management, account salespersons, and sales engineers, as well as partner resources, field marketing, services professionals, and commercial management personnel, who are focused on maintaining a high-touch, consultative relationship with the company’s customers.
The company also maintains a global partner program that includes distributors, resellers, systems integrators, service providers, OEMs, original design manufacturers, and other third-party distributors who market and sell the company’s products and services. The company utilizes these third-party channel partners to market and sell the company’s solutions into specific geographies, applications, or customer verticals. There are opportunities to leverage these relationships to expand the company’s addressable market, while at the same time reducing the financial and operational risk of entering additional markets.
To support the company’s global customer engagement efforts, the company invests in marketing activities to generate demand for its products and services. The company’s marketing strategy is highly focused on building its brand to create customer preference for Ciena, engaging in thought leadership programs to illustrate how the company’s innovations solve customer business problems, and enabling the company’s sales teams to drive customer adoption of the company’s solutions. The company’s marketing team supports its sales efforts through a variety of activities, including direct customer interaction, account-based marketing campaigns, portfolio marketing, industry events, media relations, industry analyst relations, social media, trade shows, the company’s website and other marketing vehicles for the company’s customers and channel partners.
A small number of customers account for a significant portion of the company’s revenue.
Operations and Supply Chain Management
Most of the manufacturing for the company’s products is conducted through third-party contract manufacturers. The company’s supply chain personnel manage the relationships with these third-party manufacturers and the global supply chain, addressing component sourcing, manufacturing, product testing and quality, fulfillment, distribution, and logistics relating to the support of the company’s customers.
The company utilizes a sourcing strategy that focuses on control over supplier selection and commercial terms of components and products that ultimately support the company’s customers. The company’s product manufacturing strategy is designed to support early life industrialization capabilities closer to the company’s product engineering team, as well as manufacturing in lower labor cost regions for volume. The company relies upon third-party contract manufacturers, including those with facilities in Canada, Mexico, Thailand, India, and the United States, to manufacture, support and ship the company’s products, and therefore are exposed to risks associated with their businesses, financial condition and the geographies in which they operate, including political risk, changes in tax and trade policy involving such countries, including tariffs, and physical risk, including the impact of climate change. The company also relies upon contract manufacturers and other third parties to perform design and prototype development, component procurement, full production, final assembly, testing, and distribution operations. The company’s manufacturers and component distribution partners procure components necessary for assembly and manufacture of the company’s products based on the company’s specifications, approved vendor lists, bills of materials and testing and quality standards. The company’s manufacturers and component distribution partners’ activity is based on rolling forecasts that the company provide to them to estimate demand for the company’s products. The company works with these partners and its suppliers to manage material, quality, cost and delivery times, inventory levels, and the company continually evaluates their services in an effort to ensure performance on a reliable basis. Generally, the company’s agreements with its suppliers and contract manufacturers are frame agreements against which the company places purchase orders and do not commit to long-term volume purchases.
The company uses partners, and in some cases, the same partners that support its manufacturing, to fulfill and deliver the company’s products to customers. The company’s sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution strategies allow the company to conserve capital, lower costs of product sales, adjust quickly to changes in market demand, and operate without dedicating significant resources to manufacturing-related plant and equipment.
The company continues to focus on a range of initiatives that seek to optimize its operations, improve the company’s resiliency, and drive cost reductions and efficiencies. The company’s efforts include process optimization initiatives, such as vendor-managed inventory, and other operational models and strategies designed to drive improved efficiencies in the company’s sourcing, production, logistics, and fulfillment. To enhance operational efficiency and modernize the company’s supply chain operations, while driving long-term sustainability and resilience in the face of dynamic market conditions, the company is pursuing a number of digital technology transformation efforts, including advanced analytics, automation, and other digital supply chain management solutions. The company regularly assesses and monitors its supply chain risks and have implemented various strategies to mitigate these risks and enhance resilience. These measures include dual-sourcing strategies, inventory management initiatives, multi-geography operational capabilities, and ongoing direct relationships with key suppliers to ensure transparency and alignment with the company’s goals.
The company actively works with its third-party vendors and business partners to promote socially responsible business practices within the company’s global supply chain.
Seasonality
The company has historically experienced seasonal quarterly fluctuations in customer activity in both orders and revenue, particularly with service provider customers. The company has experienced reductions in order volume toward the end of the calendar year, as the procurement cycles of these customers slow and network deployment activity is curtailed. This period coincides with the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year (year ended November 2024). This seasonality in the company’s order flows has typically caused revenue for the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year to be below that of the preceding quarter.
Competition
The company’s competitors include Nokia, Huawei (Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.), Cisco, Juniper Networks, and ZTE.
The company also continues to compete with several smaller but established companies that offer one or more products that compete directly or indirectly with the company’s offerings or whose products address specific niches within the markets and customer segments the company addresses. These competitors include Infinera, Ribbon Communications, Marvell Technology Group, and Adtran.
Competitors for the company’s Blue Planet Automation Software include Cisco, Nokia, Amdocs, ServiceNow, Netcracker, and Ericsson.
Patents, Trademarks and Other Intellectual Property Rights
As of December 2, 2024, the company had approximately 2,300 issued patents and more than 700 pending patent applications worldwide.
Governmental Regulations
Environmental Matters
The company’s business and operations are subject to environmental laws in various jurisdictions around the world, including the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (‘WEEE’) and Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (‘RoHS’) regulations adopted by the EU.
Other Regulations
As a company with global operations, the company is subject to complex foreign and the U.S. laws and regulations, including trade regulations, tariffs, import and export regulations, anti-bribery and corruption laws, antitrust or competition laws, data privacy laws and regulations, such as the European Union (‘EU’) General Data Protection Regulation (the ‘GDPR’), cybersecurity laws and regulations, and environmental regulations, among others. The company has policies and procedures in place to promote compliance with these laws and regulations.
Research and Development
During the year ended November 2, 2024, the company invested $767.5 million in research and development activities.
History
Ciena Corporation was founded in 1992. The company was incorporated in 1992.
