Alidian shuts down and shuts up, Chiaro cuts, Gluon motivates, and TeleChoice rambles

January 6, 2003

3 Min Read
Headcount: We're Baaaack!

Lock up your daughters and hide the chickens, Headcount is back from the holidays and ready to serve up another dose of industry hirings and firings:

  • Alidian Networks Inc. has closed. Really. "I don't know what the legal status of the company is, but they're effectively out of business," says a former senior-level Alidian employee.

    Alidian had about 50 employees in November 2002 when it began paying off creditors, cutting jobs, and winding things up, the source says. The company was founded in 1998 and, at its peak, it had raised more than $100 million and employed more than 200 workers.

    "The third round of financing on the company had a valuation of over $800 million," says the source. "I wish the company had taken more seriously some of the overtures to acquisition that had been made earlier on. If there's anything I'm bitter about, that would be it."

  • Gluon Networks Inc. says the widely-circulated memo regarding its survival is authentic. The note encourages employees to "do everything it takes, including postponing December vacations" so the company can hit a January 20 product deadline.

    What peeved many workers is that, as reported by The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif., Gluon CEO Jo Anne Miller skipped off to Hawaii for a six-day vacation shortly after sending the memo. Miller returned in time to work alongside her employees during the holidays, but her human resources hula made some want to puke poi.

    "Now more than ever, the Gluon team must have the start-up/do whatever ittakes mentality," states the Miller memo. "If any of you are not of that mentality... tell me... and I will do whatever I can to assist you to find a job outside of Gluon."

    The memo was only meant to be encouraging, not threatening, says Rob Avery, Gluon's VP of marketing. "We're still venture-funded, and... if we don't hit our milestones we'll have to close the doors."

    Avery says Gluon still employs about 120, and it didn't prevent employees from taking scheduled vacations. He says about 80 percent of the company was in and working on a normal schedule for most of the past two weeks, and a few worked on Christmas Day.

  • Chiaro Networks has shed some employees, but it won't say how many. At least two newspapers in Jerusalem report that Chiaro's Israel office cut 50 of its 85 employees. Chiaro CEO Ken Lewis says the papers are wrong, but he won't give headcount numbers for either of the company's locations.

    In November, Chiaro happily told Light Reading it employed 221 (see Chiaro Girds 'Router' for the Grid).

    Lewis contends things aren't all grim, though. "We'll be making another customer announcement this quarter," he says.

  • In a recent note to clients, TeleChoice Inc. CEO Danny Briere attempted to blow a little sunshine up the industry's skirt. "When people talk to you about the negative things in telecom life, try to move the conversation to the more positive things," he writes. "If a reporter asks about layoffs, point out that it was these layoffs that put the industry in the position for a rebound.

    "The fact is that there will be more downsizing, more collapses, and more changes... We may not have bottomed out yet, because 'bottom' can be defined in a lot of ways."

    And, inexplicably, Briere makes the not-so-smooth transition between negative industry chatter and young horses. "You know, the old gray mare she ain't what she used to be." The mare was a "very special mare while we rode her," he writes, and soon "we'll see her foals dance and prance and race and all those foal-like things."

    Here's a summary of other industry appointments (and disappointments) from the past several days:

    • Global Crossing Replaces Winnick

    • Cordia Elects President

    • Tadiran Appoints Prez

    • Chiaro Targets Korean Market

    • AT&T Takes Charges, Lays Off

    • Nettest Leaves the Mother Ship

    • Is Celox Farewell an Omen?

    • Multilink Restructuring Almost Done

    • Alcatel Redefines Itself

    • Liberate Fires COO, Restates Books

    In the meantime, Headcount is going back to some other foal-like things. Of course, if we missed anything in this week's report, please send a tip to [email protected].

    — Phil Harvey, Senior Editor, Light Reading
    www.lightreading.com

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