EXFO - company overview - extras from www.exfo.com
EXFO is a recognized test and measurement expert in the global telecommunications industry. The Telecom Division, which represents our main business activity, offers fully integrated and complete test solutions to network service providers (NSPs), cable TV operators, telecom system vendors and component manufacturers in approximately 70 countries.
We are the global market leader for portable optical test solutions and a leading supplier of protocol and copper access test solutions to enable triple-play services over converged, IP networks. Our PC/Windows-based modular FTB-200, FTB-400 and IQS-500 test platforms host a wide range of test solutions across optical, physical, data and network layers, while maximizing technology reuse across several market segments. Our Life Sciences and Industrial Division, which leverages several core telecom technologies, offers value-added solutions in the life sciences and high-precision assembly sectors, such as those required for microelectronics and optoelectronics. These solutions are based on advanced spot-curing, fluorescence microscopy and nanopositioning technologies.
We were founded in 1985 in Quebec City, Canada. Our original products were focused on the needs of installers and operators of fiber-optic networks. Customers use these field-portable testing products for the installation, maintenance, monitoring and troubleshooting of optical networks. In 1996, we supplemented our product portfolio with an extensive line of high-end products that are mainly dedicated to research and development as well as manufacturing activities of optical component manufacturers and system vendors.
Over the past several years, we have enhanced our competitive position through the acquisition of two protocol test businesses in order to expand our product offering and address our customers’ requirements more completely. In November 2001, we acquired Avantas Networks Corporation (renamed EXFO Protocol Inc.), a supplier of protocol-testing and optical-network performance management equipment for NSPs. This transaction was highly strategic because it enabled us to combine optical and protocol test modules inside a single field-portable test platform to help our customers increase revenues and reduce operating costs. In October 2002, our wholly-owned subsidiary, EXFO Gnubi, purchased substantially all the assets of gnubi communications, L.P., a supplier of multi-channel telecom and datacom testing solutions for the system manufacturer market. These strategic acquisitions, which were consolidated in Montreal, Canada, in fiscal 2004, enabled us to more than double our addressable market, as we expanded from optical testing to protocol testing applications, and to offer a more complete line of test solutions to our customers. |
