the dismissal of Lord Simpson (the CEO) and Sir Roger Hurn (Chairman). In June 2001 Marconi sold its Ipsaris business to Easynet in an all-share deal worth over £300 million. Ipsaris was a network provider owning one of the largest backbones in the UK at the time, with 3,500 kilometers of optical fibre running alongside the UK canal network. The deal resulted in Marconi owning a 72% stake in Easynet. However, by March 2002 demand for space on the Easynet network had slumped and Easynet effectively mothballed the Ipsaris fibre optic network, and the value of the entire network was written down from £350 million to £15 million. On 19 May 2003, Marconi underwent a major restructuring into Marconi Corporation. In a debt-for-equity swap, the firm's creditors received 99.5% of the new company's shares, while Marconi shareholders received one Marconi Corporation share for every 559 Marconi shares. In July 2003 Marconi sold 32% of its stake in Easynet for £40.5 million and in September 2003 it sold its remaining 40% stake for £56.7 million, in an effort to pay off debt and increase the liquidity in Easynet shares. The company was a major supplier of asynchronous transfer mode, gigabit Ethernet, and Internet Protocol products. In 2005, it failed to secure any part of BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) programme. That Marconi received no major 21CN contract was a surprise to commentators, and sent the company's shares tumbling. An example of analysis before BT announced the winners of contracts is Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's: "[Marconi is] so advanced with its products and so entrenched with BT Group that its selection looks certain." Various bids began to be made for the business, including one by Huawei Technologies, with whom Marconi already had a joint venture. The majority of Marconi Corporation's businesses, including Marconi Communications, were sold to Ericsson in 2005, and the remainder was renamed Telent. Operations In September 2000, Marconi announced the formation of global Technology Centers. The three Enterprise Technology Centers were based in San Jose, California; Vienna, Virginia; and Israel. The San Jose Technology Center, which had been responsible for management of Marconi's gigabit Ethernet solutions, broadened its research focus to include development of application-oriented platforms, connection-oriented uplinks between connection and connectionless networks, deep packet inspection solutions, and predictable quality of service. The center in Israel concentrated its research and development on AI-based network behavior and the Virginia center focused