5:10 PM The chip company wants to up the ante on VDSL

Craig Matsumoto, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

August 6, 2010

2 Min Read
Ikanos Names Sixth CEO

5:10 PM -- Ikanos Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IKAN) named John Quigley CEO this week, and that makes five CEOs in six years:

Table 1: Ikanos's CEO Lineage

Fiscal Year

CEO (as of December)

2005

Rajesh Vashist

2006

Daniel Atler

2007

Michael Ricci

2008

Michael Gulett

2009

Michael Gulett

2010

John Quigley*

Source: Ikanos
* We figure he'll still be there in December





Quigley replaces replace Mike Gulett, who left in April. (See Ikanos CEO Resigns.)

He comes in after the bad news got delivered. Ikanos stock fell 36 percent on Thursday after the company announced its revenue was getting slammed by an ADSL shortfall, half of it coming from a delayed rollout in Asia. Third-quarter revenues will be $40 million to $43 million, compared with $55.6 million for the second quarter.

ADSL, acquired from Conexant Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CNXT) last year, was supposed to help Ikanos by providing breadth. (See Ikanos Reaches for DSL Breadth.)

That breadth is still there -- after all, $40 million is still more than Ikanos's pre-acquisition quarterly revenues. But on Wednesday's earnings call, the talk was all about pumping more engineering resources into VDSL, Ikanos's main market.

Vectoring, which improves data rates by canceling line noise, is one technology that executive chairman Dado Banatao noted during the call. Vectoring isn't particularly secret -- Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) and Lantiq Semiconductor are working on it, too -- but Ikanos has a "unique approach" to it, he said. VDSL business grew by double digits between the first and second quarters, so Ikanos still has fuel to burn there. From an earnings perspective, though, it doesn't look good. "We believe we will not return to the revenue levels of Q1 and Q2 for some time," CFO Dennis Bencala said on the call.

The company will be laying off 20 percent of its employees during the rest of 2010; it had employed 588 as of January, according to its SEC 10-K filing.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Craig Matsumoto

Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

Yes, THAT Craig Matsumoto – who used to be at Light Reading from 2002 until 2013 and then went away and did other stuff and now HE'S BACK! As Editor-in-Chief. Go Craig!!

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