Solectron Extends Reach into Optical Equipment Market

MILPITAS, Calif., June 4 -- Solectron Corp., a contract electronics manufacturer, announced that it would take over an optical equipment plant from Cisco Systems Inc. The agreement says that Solectron will buy Cisco's manufacturing equipment and that it had been granted a two-year contract to outsource the production and testing of Cisco's dense wavelength division multiplexing equipment. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Solectron said that it had offered jobs to key operations and management staff at Cisco as part of the transition. About 90 Cisco staff in South Carolina were laid off as part of the transfer, job reductions that were counted against the company's announced goal of cutting between 7 and 11 percent of its global work force, the company said.