Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) ("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.

Product lines

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

• Test & Measurement products such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, automated optical inspection, automated x-ray inspection (5DX), in circuit test, and electronic design automation (EDA) software
• Life Science and Chemical Analysis products such as DNA microarrays, HPLCs, capillary electrophoresis systems, mass spectrometers, and gas chromatographs
• Communications Test equipment such as LAN/WAN network analyzers

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.

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.

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.

• In August 2005, Agilent Technologies announced the sale of its Semiconductor Products Group, which produced light-emitting diodes, radio frequency and mixed-signal integrated circuits, to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and Silver Lake Partners. The group now operates as Avago Technologies, an independent, privately held company. Agilent also sold its 47% stake in the light-emitting diode manufacturer Lumileds to Philips Electronics for just under $1 billion. Lumileds originally started as Hewlett-Packard's optoelectronics division.

• 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.

Awards

Agilent Technologies received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2004, the third year of the report.

References

Resources

• Yahoo! - Agilent Technologies, Inc. Company Profile

Current and historic Stock Market status

• See | Google Finance, | Yahoo Finance, | MSN Money, | Market Watch, | CNN Money or | Reuters.