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Vitesse Buys GigE Ammo: Page 2 of 3

Cicada spokesman Roger Taylor says he expects his company to try to maintain its previous partnerships. "We've considered ourselves like independent arms dealers with PHYs until now," he says. "I guess we'll try to retain as much of our position as we can."

Vitesse's Tomasetta said he expects Cicada products to contribute around $10 million in 2004 revenues, mostly in the second half of the year, when many customers are expected to upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet. He also expects Vitesse to record charges related to the deal. Details will have to wait until after the holidays.

Cicada's Roger Taylor says the company currently has between 50 and 60 employees; Vitesse's release said it expects Cicada will have approximately 40 employees when the deal closes. Taylor says no Cicada employees have been told whether they will be retained, including management.

The remaining employees will mostly be those working in product development. Vitesse's press release quoted Cicada CEO David McLean as saying, "We are thrilled to be joining forces with Vitesse. We have had a successful business relationship with them and look forward to combining our engineering teams to capture a substantial share of the emerging Gigabit Ethernet LAN market."

Richard Riker, Vitesse's VP of sales and marketing, says the Cicada employees will stay on at its Austin, Texas, headquarters as part of the Vitesse Ethernet business unit.