Agilent Technologies

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Agilent Technologies
Type Public (NYSEA)
Founded 1999 (from HP)
Headquarters Santa Clara, California, USA
Key people William P. Sullivan CEO
Industry Electronic Testing Equipment, Life Sciences,
EDA, Network Analyzers
Revenue US$ 4.97 billion (2006)[1]
Operating income $465 million
Net income $3.31 billion
Employees ~19,000
Website www.agilent.com

Agilent Technologies (NYSEA) ("Agilent" for short) is a measurement and instrument company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Agilent's roots are at the founding of Hewlett-Packard in 1939. All of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and imaging were spun off from HP in 1999 to form Agilent. Agilent's spin-off was the largest initial public offering in the history of Silicon Valley.

The spin-off created an $8 billion company with about 47,000 employees, manufacturing scientific instruments, semiconductors, optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless R&D and production.

Contents

[edit] Product lines

Agilent manufactures many products descended from HP's original product lines.

Agilent former headquarters in Palo Alto
Agilent former headquarters in Palo Alto

Agilent's major product lines include:

[edit] Research and development

Agilent Technologies has a robust research and development program as part of Agilent Laboratories, with active research in MEMS, nanotechnology, and Life Sciences.

[edit] Investment arm

Agilent Technologies has an active investment group, Agilent Ventures, which invests in high-tech start up companies. Investments include MEMX, Infinera, and Telasics.

[edit] Corporate restructuring

  • In 2001, Agilent Technologies sold its healthcare and medical products organization to Philips Medical Systems. HP Medical Products had been the second oldest part of Hewlett-Packard, acquired in the 1950s. Only the original founding test and measurement organization was older.
  • Also in August 2005, Agilent announced a plan to spin off its semiconductor test solutions business, composed of both the system-on-chip and memory test market areas. Agilent’s listed the new company Verigy, mid-2006 on Nasdaq.


[edit] Controversial Employment Practices

In 2006 a former Agilent employee was awarded $400,000 by US District Court over the company's violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act (USERRA). Agilent had fired former employee Steve Duarte while Duarte was deployed to Iraq with his Marine Reserve unit. [2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Agilent Technologies Inc. (Dashboard). Google Finance Beta. Retrieved on 2007-12-17.
  2. ^ While reservists serve, their jobs don't always wait. Retrieved on 2008-4-9.

[edit] Resources

[edit] Current and historic Stock Market status

[edit] External links