Soapstone CTO departs following product launch

Larry Dennison, chief technology officer at Soapstone Networks, left the company this week, following the launch of the company’s flagship product.

According to regulatory filings, Dennison’s employment ended October 6, and his duties will be absorbed by existing officers and employees.

Dennison’s departure comes as the company unveils at industry trade shows the much-anticipated flagship product that the CTO helped develop starting early last year: a software control plane for carrier networks, with a particular focus on carrier Ethernet technologies such as Provider Backbone Bridging and Provider Backbone Bridging – Traffic Engineering. (Hear Dennison describe the technology firsthand in this podcast.) After nearly two years of development, that product, the Provider Network Controller, became generally available last month, Soapstone said.

The company’s regulatory filings gave no reason for Dennison’s departure, and a company spokesperson was unable to provide more details.

Dennison cofounded Soapstone in 2007 and, a decade earlier, cofounded the company that spawned Soapstone: core router vendor Avici Networks.