As Keysight Technologies’ first year as an independent company comes to a close, it has announced a new organizational structure that divides the company into three business groups focused on different customer bases, and another group for corporate leadership and technology.
“The changes that we’re announcing today are the next step in our evolution and are designed to focus directly on our customers and the development of the solutions they need to succeed in their industries,” said Ron Nersesian, Keysight’s president and CEO, in a statement.
Keysight will create a centralized Corporate Planning and Technology team led by Jay Alexander, Keysight EVP and CTO; this group will focus on strategic planning, software and central technology development as well as Keysight Labs. The company will also reorganize its operations with three business groups: Communications Solutions Group, the Industrial Solutions Group and the Services Solutions Group.
Michael Gasparian, Keysight senior vice president who formerly headed up its customer support and marketing, is now president of the communications group, which addresses the wireless market and aerospace and defense. Former SVP Gooi Soon Chai is now president of the Industrial Solutions Group for the automotive, energy, manufacturing and semiconductor space as well as sourcing and IT. John Page, formerly VP of business finance for Keysight, will head up the Services Solutions Group for technology management services including asset management and calibration.
Guy Séné, SVP of worldside sales, will be focused on the recent Anite acquisition and integration, management and growth for that business, Keysight said.
In other company news this week, the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Microsystems and Solid State Technologies EMFT is the first research center in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India to demonstrate Keysight’s EEs of EDAs E4727A Advanced Low-Frequency Noise Analyzer. Fraunhofer EMFT focuses in particular on sensors for the “Internet of Things”, and Keysight said that as researchers work to scale down the power needs of such sensors, they become more susceptible to the influence of low-frequency noise – and need much more accuracy in the measurement of such noise.
-As quarterly results start to roll in for the test industry, Rohde & Schwarz gave some insight into the company’s finances for its fiscal 2014-2015 year. The company is privately held and does not have to report quarterly revenues or detailed results.
R&S said that its order income was up 6.1% from the previous year to about $2 billion, with revenues up 4.1% to about $1.97 billion. The largest contributor to the company’s results was its test business for wireless communications, driven by new demand for 5G R&D orders, R&S said, and the company saw a slight increase in its market share in Europe. R&S said that there is customer demand for standard test equipment at lower prices, and that it will be integrating its Hameg Instruments subsidiary completely into its Test and Measurement Division to support wider distribution of those lower-cost offerings. R&S also said that its oscilloscopes have done better in the past year and that it will continue to add new models and accessories to that product line.
Rohde ended the year with about 9,900 employees, up from 9,800 a year earlier.
In a statement, the company said that “business development focused on test and measurement and secure communications” and that it “substantially expanded its cybersecurity activities” through two acquisitions and that it intends to do more in this arena, including “[enhancing] its existing cybersecurity expertise through external impetus.”
–Pasternack and Ducommun have agreed to a partnership in which Pasternack will private-label manufacture and offer some Ducommun RF products under the Pasternack brand. This expands Pasternack’s product offerings and Ducommun’s reach in verticals such as colleges and universities, the medical industry and research and development.
-The short list for the LTE North America awards has been announced, with InfoVista, Prisma Telecom Testing, SIGOS and CommScope all competing for test and measurement awards, and Ascom Network Testing, NIKSUN and SevOne identified as finalists for LTE core network products.
–Anritsu launched two new isotropic antennas to measure electromagnetic field radiation with frequency coverage from 9 kHz to 6 GHz; they can be used with some of its LMR Master, Spectrum Master and Cell Master handheld analyzers. The company already has an isotropic antenna that covers between 0/7 GHz to 6 GHz for cellular measurements.
Anritsu also recently reported results (pdf), saying that it saw depressed demand in the first half of its fiscal year due to the restructuring going on among chip and device vendors (company Q&A pdf here). Anritsu’s revenues were up about 2%, but its profits fell around 32% from the prior year period. However, the company expects that three-component-carrier carrier aggregation, LTE-Advanced and interest in 5G will mean a pick up in the coming months, as well as noting that it already has had orders for connected car-related test equipment.
