Ciena Corp fourth quarter earnings preview

The recession took its toll of the company, which has not been able to post positive earnings since the third quarter of last year.

In a move that will double the company's operations, Ciena recently received approval from U.S. bankruptcy courts for its acquisition of Nortel Networks' metro Ethernet networks business for $769 million. The deal had been fought by Nokia (NOK), who came in at the last minute and outbid Ciena with an $810 million offer. The Nokia offer was dismissed at the last minute on technical grounds.

Ciena expects to begin realizing the benefits from the Nortel deal as early as next year. The company's senior vice president of strategic planning, Tom Mock, stated that the Nortel deal is going to help the company not on here in the states, but in Europe and Canada as well.

Discussing the current marketplace, Mock stated that while things are no where near where they were back in 2008, they are stabilizing. Mock noted that many of its customers, who had cut back on spending during the recession, were starting to increase spending once again.

Expect to hear more about the Nortel deal, and what the company expects to see next year during tomorrow's conference call.