It's been a rough couple of weeks for Deshpande, who is chairman of Waltham, Mass.-based A123 Systems, the maker of electric car batteries that last week said it was seeking bankruptcy protection.

"After careful consideration of the Company's strategic alternatives, we believe these actions are in the best interests of Sycamore's stockholders, as well as its customers and employees," said Daniel Smith, president and CEO of the Chelmsford, Mass., company. "We are pleased with Marlin's decision to acquire our Intelligent Bandwidth Management business operations, which will provide for continued support of our global customer base."

The company, whose technology is found in networks from Sprint to Vodafone to NTT in Japan, employed 250 as of this summer, according to an SEC filing. Marlin has said it will offer employment opportunities to most Sycamore workers who remain.

Network World tracked the goings-on at Sycamore closely as the company during its early days addressed the need by carriers for big bandwidth. of technology that would enable carriers to turn up optical circuits for customers in seconds rather than weeks or months. The company also rolled out products designed to enable carriers to slash the price of  

But all that wasn't enough to sustain Sycamore in a competitive market that has also left others that started up around the same time, including efforting to thrive in a competitive carrier equipment market involving U.S. and overseas companies.