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There’s little debate that 2009 was a difficult year for many organizations. While some fared better than others, one Huntsville, Ala.-based supplier of converged communication solutions said its is taking a cautious approach to the New Year as customers re-evaluate their buying decisions and search for lower cost options.

“There is no doubt that next-generation technologies that allow carriers to deliver services more efficiently and at reduced costs will be a key focal point for the industry,” Tom Stanton, ADTRAN (News - Alert) CEO, told TMCnet in an interview, printed in full below. “Enterprise customers will continue to embrace converged communications solutions as a way to increase productivity and reduce costs.”

 

Despite the economic downturn, ADTRAN had a successful year, Stanton said. Building off the recent launch of its Unified Communications (News - Alert) products, the company has high hopes that customers will consider its network as a “key element” of their competitive advantage and continue investing in technology that supports it, he said.

Our exchange follows.

 

Tom Stanton (pictured below): Overall, 2009 was a good year for ADTRAN. Our three major growth areas: broadband access, optical access and internetworking, set new records, with year-over-year growth in excess of 20 percent in each category. Combined, these areas accounted for more than 50 percent of the company’s total revenue. We were pleased to see continued wide-spread acceptance of the Total Access 5000 as carriers continue to look for innovative, cost-effective ways to migrate to next-generation services. Likewise, our NetVanta products continued to gain market share and the announcement of unified communications products at the end of Q4 will help us further strengthen this brand with small and mid-size enterprise customers.

 

 

TS: We have had a number of exciting announcements throughout the year. In the Internet-working area we saw the launch of the NetVanta Unified Communications product family. The addition of UC capabilities to our NetVanta portfolio now allows our partners to offer a complete end-to-end business networking solution.

 

In Broadband Access, we were pleased to see the continued adoption of our Total Access 5000 Multi-Service Access and Aggregation Platform as was highlighted in a series of customer wins. We also announced the addition of Ethernet over Fiber and Bonded DMT (News - Alert) capabilities for this platform.

 

Broadband stimulus was another focal area. ADTRAN continues its efforts to positively influence this process. ADTRAN was successful in efforts to influence definitions of key terms and rule changes for later round funding to make the process accessible to a wider number of service providers.

 

In the optical access arena we announced new solutions for mobile backhaul and strengthened positioning of the OPTI-6100 for utility deployments with the addition of IEEE (News - Alert)-1613 compliance. This opens a new opportunity for the optical solution suite and perfectly positions the OPTI-6100 for smart grid applications.

 

 

TS: In times like these, customers re-evaluate buying decisions and look for the solution that brings them the greatest value, both for today and over the long haul. ADTRAN solutions offer low TCO and expedited ROI. As a result, we have been able to maintain and increase our market share in many areas despite the sluggishness of the economy.

 

TS: We are approaching 2010 with cautious optimism. We are hopeful that customers will continue to view their network as a key element of their competitive advantage and continue investing in it as such. There is no doubt that next-generation technologies that allow carriers to deliver services more efficiently and at reduced costs will be a key focal point for the industry. Enterprise customers will continue to embrace converged communications solutions as a way to increase productivity and reduce costs.

 

 

TS: I am very optimistic that 2010 will be a good year for ADTRAN. Our goal is to continue to grow our key areas of broadband access, optical access and Internet-working and to increase our market share in associated technology areas. We look to see continued momentum coming out of the recession as carriers seek to further increase deployment of services such as IPTV (News - Alert). In addition, the Broadband Stimulus initiative may prove to be another positive increment to business.