Rick Barry is out and Naimish Patel moves up the corporate food chain. Who knew?

March 20, 2002

2 Min Read
Sycamore's CTO Switch

File this one under “who knew?” Sycamore Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: SCMR) CTO Rick Barry resigned a few weeks back, and Naimish Patel, formerly the senior director of network architecture, has taken over the job.

The company kept the change quiet: It did not announce the management change with a press release, although Patel is now featured as the CTO on the corporate Website. Patel attended the Light Reading OFC party in Anaheim last night, where he handed out a newly minted business card but declined to say whether he had any gigantic technical changes planned for Sycamore.

Lucia Graziano, director of public relations for Sycamore, says the company is not legally bound to inform investors about the change, so it didn’t. She predicts it will likely mention the change on its next quarterly earnings call.

The news wasn’t much of a surprise to some analysts covering the company. "I had heard rumblings about that," says Rick Schafer of CIBC World Markets. "But I hadn’t heard it for certain. It doesn’t really freak me out. A lot of companies have made management changes lately."

Barry, who was a founder and had been with the company from its early days, left to retire from the industry. Patel has also been at Sycamore since the company started in 1998. In his previous role, he reported directly to Barry. As CTO, he will now report to Kevin Oye, the vice president of systems and technology.

Prior to joining Sycamore, Patel was a chief architect at Digital Equipment Corp., where he led the development of a next-generation high-capacity IP switch/router. Patel also worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (known frequently as "Lincoln Labs"), where he researched all-optical switching technology for 100 Gbit/s high-speed optical TDM networks. Much of Sycamore's technical staff, including Barry, had done research at Lincoln Labs.

As an aside, Rick Barry also holds the NBA all-time record for career free throw percentage.

— Marguerite Reardon, Senior Editor, Light Reading
http://www.lightreading.com

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