Cyan CEO Mark Floyd says Cyan has one of its biggest orders ever on the horizon.

Dan O'Shea, Analyst, Heavyreading.com

August 12, 2014

2 Min Read
Mystery Customer Deals Big Order for Cyan

Packet optical vendor Cyan reported on it second-quarter earnings call late Monday that it had surpassed revenue expectations for the quarter, but Cyan CEO Mark Floyd was already looking ahead.

After company officials quickly ran through their second-quarter numbers, Floyd disclosed that Cyan Inc. recently received one of its largest orders ever, totaling more than $10 million, from an existing customer for its Z-Series 100G packet optical platform and Blue Planet orchestration software. He did not say who the customer was, and said the revenue would not be realized until the first quarter of 2015.

Cyan's largest customer on a quarter-to-quarter basis is Windstream Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: WIN), and its quarterly results in the past have fluctuated based on Windstream's spending patterns. During the second quarter, Cyan said revenue from Windstream was greater than had been expected, about $6.7 million of the vendor's $24.4 million total revenue for the quarter. (See Cyan Packs One-Two Product Upgrade Punch and Cyan Reports Q2 Revenue Uptick.)

However, the mystery customer also could be Colt Technology Services Group Ltd , which uses Cyan as part of its Carrier Ethernet Multi-Service Platform (MSP), a service which won a 2014 Leading Lights award. Or, what about Japanese operator KVH Co. Ltd. ? Cyan has in fact been finding increasing success in international markets. Company officials said Monday that international sales were up 15% during the second quarter versus the first quarter, and that the third quarter could see more of the same. (See Colt Wins Leading Lights Innovative Ethernet Service Award , Colt a Significant Win for Cyan and Cyan's Blue Planet Now in KVH's Orbit.)

There are a number of customers that possibly could be behind the order, though some of Cyan's customers are small telcos that are not likely to commit to that large an order. The Tier 3 telcos have been a source of some market softness for Cyan recently, Floyd said, though in the long term he believes Connect America program funds will stir spending at that level of the market.

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Meanwhile, Floyd also boasted that Cyan had recently demonstrated its Blue Planet platform working in tandem with the hardware of a major equipment vendor. The platform proved itself "automating, managing and orchestrating several of [the unnamed vendor's] hardware systems," Floyd said. He said the successful demonstration could create a significant global market opportunity for Cyan.

— Dan O'Shea, Managing Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Dan O'Shea

Analyst, Heavyreading.com

You want Dans? We got 'em! This one, "Fancy" Dan O'Shea, has been covering the telecom industry for 20 years, writing about virtually every technology segment and winning several ASBPE awards in the process. He previously served as editor-in-chief of Telephony magazine, and was the founding editor of FierceTelecom. Grrrr! Most recently, this sleep-deprived father of two young children has been a Chicago-based freelance writer, and continues to pontificate on non-telecom topics such as fantasy sports, craft beer, baseball and other subjects that pay very little but go down well at parties. In his spare time he claims to be reading Ulysses (yeah, right), owns fantasy sports teams that almost never win, and indulges in some fieldwork with those craft beers. So basically, it's time to boost those bar budgets, folks!

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