Semiconductor company Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:MLNX; TASE:MLNX) CEO Eyal Waldman and former competitor Voltaire Ltd. (Nasdaq:VOLT) CEO Ronnie Kenneth looked relaxed together today at a joint press conference 24 hours after their companies merged.

Yesterday it was announced that Mellanox is acquiring Voltaire for $218 million, or $176 million counting the cash it has purchased. Both companies are leaders in the infiniband rapid connectivity sector between servers and organizations with a speed of up to 80Gb.

Waldman has been speaking about building a large company for some years. He said, "I've been expecting this to happen for some time. I think that the new Mellanox can be a significant player in the new communications market for data centers and can be a billion dollar company. We lack nothing to reach that sort of size."

The combined businesses currently have about 700 employees and achieved revenue of $217 million for the twelve months ended September 30, 2010.

Kenneth who will serve as a director in the newly merged company said, "You reach a point where too many people are telling you that this is what needs to be. That's what happened to both of us. Too many people said that this is what needs to happen."

Waldman said that the structural reorganization after the merger will include layoffs. He said, "We don't intend making significant layoffs. We want to keep most of the companies' employees. But we want to build an efficient company and we have a think tank team for the merger that will recommend what to do from the organizational point of view."

Mellanox, which has $240 million in cash, will complete the acquisition of Voltaire in cash. Voltaire has cash of $40 million and Waldman said, "We believe that with close to $80 million in cash at the end of the merger , we will be in a comfortable situation."

Waldman said that Oracle will not increase its 10.2% holding in Mellanox and that Oracle CEO Larry Allison told him this personally.

Mellanox share price was down 2.67% in morning trading on Nasdaq today, giving a market cap of $804.9 million.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 30, 2010

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