NSN Sells Optical Unit

The portfolio streamlining process at Nokia Networks continued today as the giant vendor announced the impending sale of its enterprise optical equipment division, Open Transport Network (OTN).

Belgian private equity firm GIMV is to buy the unit, including its product lines and all the associated R&D and business support functions, for an undisclosed sum, and create a new company.

OTN has developed optical products for large enterprise networks, and is deployed by companies in the transport and energy sectors, according to NSN spokespeople. To see what OTN is all about, check out this dedicated Website.

OTN's 80 staff, which are based in Herentals, Belgium, will transfer to the new company. NSN will not hold a stake in the resulting venture, but will continue to sell OTN's products on a sales partnership basis.

The move is part of NSN's efforts to cut its costs by €2 billion ($3.1 billion) by the end of this year. To achieve that goal the vendor is focusing its efforts on key carrier technology developments, and either selling or outsourcing non-core parts of the business. (See Nokia Siemens Gets Ruthless on R&D Focus, NSN Products Face Further Cuts, and NSN Improves, Confirms Extra Cuts.)

In fact, NSN has already relieved itself of quite a few parts of its R&D empire:

SGS Takes on NSN Assets

NSN, TCS Partner

NSN to Outsource R&D

NSN Transfers to Jabil

NSN, Wipro Partner

NSN Outsources to IBM

NSN to Outsource R&D

NSN's Staff Shuffle

NSN Outsources to Aricent

But while that has helped towards NSN's headcount reduction targets, the company has also added to its staff rota since it opened its doors for business on April 1, 2007, with a couple of acquisitions. (See Nokia Siemens Snaps Up IMS Vendor and Nokia Siemens to Acquire Atrica.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading