Broadcom Restructures Into Four Segments

Executives with Broadcom Thursday said the company is consolidating into four distinct business groups as opposed to its current six.

The Irvine, Calif.-based broadband equipment manufacturer said the changes impact everything from marketing to product development. Manufacturing operations, central engineering, and sales, general and administrative functions will remain unchanged.

The company said a vice president will head each group and report directly to interim president and CEO Alan "Lanny" Ross.

"This is an opportunity to more closely align Broadcom's technology and products with our customers and their end markets," Ross said in a statement. "We believe this will result in improved focus and execution of our sales and marketing efforts with current and future customers. In addition, I expect this realignment to help leverage and accelerate the pace of integration and convergence of our broadband communications product offerings to the home, enterprise and mobile markets."

The company said nobody would lose their jobs as part of the realignment and does not expect to rack up any big costs because of the changes. Broadcom is trying to recuperate following a string of patent lawsuits and a $1.76 billion loss reported at the beginning of the year.

The company is currently looking for a permanent replacement at CEO since founder Henry Nicholas announced his retirement back in January 2003. According to published reports, an analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray predicts Broadcom will hire a senior executive from Cisco Systems for the top post. A spokesperson for Broadcom declined to comment.

The new strategic business groups include:

• Enterprise Computing Group -- Led by Thomas Lagatta, the group oversees systemI/O products including server storage, network attached storage (NAS) and redundant array of independent disk (RAID). Products from this Group include Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet controllers for network interface cards (NICs) and LAN on motherboard (LOM) technology for notebook and desktop computers.
• Networking Infrastructure Group -- Dr. Ford Tamer will lead the company's Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching and physical layer products, Fibre Channel switching, SerDes, security, broadband processors and optical solutions for the wide area network (WAN), metropolitan, enterprise, small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) and small office/home office (SOHO) markets.
• Mobile & Wireless Group -- Spearheaded by Robert Rango the group oversees Broadcom's GSM/GPRS/Edge, IEEE 802.11, and Bluetooth communications products. Additionally, Rango is responsible for Broadcom's Internet Protocol (IP) phone and Voice over IP (VoIP) product lines.
• Broadband Communications Group -- Daniel Marotta will focus on satellite, cable, xDSL and fixed wireless broadband markets with products designed for cable and DSL modems and gateways; digital cable and satellite set top boxes; digital TV; cable modem termination systems (CMTS) used by cable providers at their head-end equipment locations; and DSL access multiplexers used by service providers.