categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
finisar
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 12)
Jerry now discusses the future of Finisar, given the altered landscape. JDSU just bought Picolight, a leading designer and manufacturer of optical pluggable transceivers for $125 Million. Infinera, which integrates optical and electronic functions in its proprietary InP-based photonic ICs, intends to raise $150 million through an IPO filed on February 26, 2007. The number
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 11)
After undertaking significant changes, cost cutting and other strategic moves, Finisar has emerged as a company poised for increased market growth. SM: And your stock went from under a dollar to quite a bit higher now? JR: Our stock is quite volatile, and always has been. It went from less than a dollar to, I
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 10)
More on the strategic decisions and cost-cutting measures taken. SM: How did you do that? Did you change materials, did you negotiate your supply contracts? I mean 70% of material costs is a lot of material costs to shave. JR: The way we did it was we bought a laser fab in Fremont to make
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 9)
Essential to the turnaround of Finisar were decisions which were much different than those being made by competitors, and different than prevailing popular trends. Ultimately, these decisions were also the right ones for Finisar’s survival. SM: And there were lots of process innovations along the way? JR: Exactly. So sharing all of that with a
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 8)
After confronting the realities of the new market, difficult decisions needed to be made. Here the “engineer” in Jerry proves very helpful as he tackles the issue, at least in some ways, as an engineering problem. Cutting costs and establishing new operating procedures required far reaching changes. Also, I find it impressive that Jerry did
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 7)
Dramatic changes in the market had forced major fiber optic giants like Lucent into tough decisions. The market also proved to be volitile and unpredictable. Nortel, in desperation, offered Finisar its optics business. SM: Nortel had interest in survival. JR: Yes. We spent two weeks in Ottawa trying to figure out how we could assume
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 6)
A very interesting discussion of the dramatic times during the late 90’s and the early 2000 timeframe. Read on. SM: What were your sales pre-IPO? JR: I think in the ’98 period they were probably $30M. Our fiscal year 2000, which is when we went public, was $67M. In January of 1999 the IPO market
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 5)
Among the many amazing feats Jerry has accomplished with Finisar, one of the most impressive is how the company was able to grow and develop without the assistance of outside funding. SM: All of this you were still doing without outside money; it was still a bootstrapped company? JR: Still a bootstrapped company. SM: Wow,
