April 15, 2004 State College, PA -- C-COR.net Corp., provider of broadband communications products, software systems, and services, has entered into an agreement to acquire all assets of Lantern Communications Inc., developer of metro packet-based transport solutions. Consummation of the transaction is subject to a number of conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of C-COR's fiscal year 2004. With the completion of the purchase, Lantern will become part of C-COR's Broadband Communications Products (BCP) division. The Company anticipates that in fiscal year 2005 the Lantern acquisition will add approximately $20 million in net sales and contribute to earnings.
Lantern Communications, a privately held company headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, is a provider of packet-based transport solutions enabling scalable deployment of carrier-class, quality-of-service (QoS) assured Ethernet services across metro networks. As a founding member of the Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) Alliance, Lantern helped develop RPR technology for migrating packet-based technologies from LANs to MANs. RPR technology is emerging as the solution of choice for metro data transport applications because it combines the high availability and reliability of existing voice-optimized circuit-switched infrastructures with the superior bandwidth utilization, simplicity, and cost advantages of Ethernet, say Lantern representatives. These capabilities make RPR well suited to support converged multi-service networks that will carry bandwidth-hungry data, voice, and video traffic. C-COR anticipates that Lantern's Metro Packet Switch (MSP) system, which incorporates advanced bandwidth management and QoS techniques to enable the delivery of deterministic services over an all packet edge infrastructure, will form the foundation for a new generation of C-COR's digital video transport product line.
Based on preliminary results for the quarter ended March 26, 2004, the company expects to report net sales of between $58 and $58.5 million. The company also anticipates that diluted earnings per share will be somewhat higher than its previous guidance of $0.06 to $0.08.
For the quarter ending June 25, 2004, the company anticipates net sales between $59 and $61 million and diluted earnings per share between $0.07 and $0.10. This guidance reflects an expected shift in revenue mix, including less software revenue than in the previous quarter, integration costs related to the Lantern acquisition, and the effect of increased shares outstanding from the common stock offering completed in the previous quarter.