Sycamore discontinues another Eastern Research product

Sycamore Networks decided late last month to discontinue marketing or developing the BSG line of products it obtained through its acquisition of Eastern Research last year.

Eastern introduced the BSG-1u Base Station Access Gateway in early 2005 as a way to help mobile operators migrate to packet-based networks.

Last fall, not long after closing its $80-million cash acquisition of Eastern, Sycamore discontinued Eastern’s OX8000 optical cross-connect product, noting in regulatory filings that the product, unveiled in 2005, was “in the development stage on the date of acquisition.” Sycamore has been selling its own optical cross-connects for years.

Sycamore expects to record charges totaling $10.7 million in connection with the BSG cancellation. It recorded $7.7 million in charges to cancel the OX8000.

The OX and BSG products represented two of Eastern’s three primary hardware product groups, the third being its flagship DNX multiservice access platform.

“[Sycamore’s] access product line remains a focus of [the company’s] strategy of providing its customers an intelligent networking solution from access to the optical core,” the vendor wrote in regulatory filings this week. “[Sycamore] expects to concentrate its future research and development efforts on initiatives driven by its customer’s [sic] needs that include intelligent multi-service networking, dynamic control plane technology, advanced service management, and network management.”