SAN JOSE, Calif., June 29 -- Alidian Networks, developer of optical networking equipment for metropolitan-area networks, reduced its work force by 55 people, or approximately 25 percent, earlier this week. The reductions were distributed across the administrative, marketing, engineering and operations areas of the company.
    Barton Shigemura, Alidian president and CEO, said, "Like many of our peers in the industry, we were overly optimistic about the pace at which the carrier market for new networking technologies would grow, and staffed up accordingly. With this week's layoffs we can adjust for actual market conditions and still have sufficient cash to carry us through the downturn while fully supporting our carrier trials and our OEM partners. Trials of our OSN family are going very well, and prospects remain excellent because carriers recognize that products such as ours can conserve costly wavelengths and result in significant savings over the long term."