More than 970 exhibitors--twice as many as the 2000 show--displayed the latest photonics gear. The exhibit hall was filled with academics and entrepreneurs from around the world, along with throngs of venture capitalists, investment bankers and Wall Street analysts. Everyone was searching for the hottest products and the next breakthrough technology, such as tunable lasers, all-optical switching components, Raman amplifiers, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems and devices capable of 40-gigabits-per-second transmission speeds.

Bellwether companies such as Corning Inc., JDS Uniphase Corp. and Nortel Networks Corp. held court in massive booths that attracted thousands of visitors eager to view next-generation optical components. JDS Uniphase (San Jose, CA) alone unveiled 70 new products in Anaheim. But, several weeks after the OFC show, the company announced that it was cutting 5,000 manufacturing jobs or 20 percent of its workforce. As part of a "global realignment program," JDS Uniphase is shifting a large chunk of its production to China to take advantage of a "favorable cost and tax environment," which includes much lower wages for its labor-intensive assembly processes.