Four years ago in 2012, US-based Cisco purchased the (British-) Israeli company NDS for 5 billion dollars. It was the largest hi-tech purchase in Israel.
Founded in 1988, with its headquarters in Jerusalem, NDS was a hi-tech company building encryption solutions for pay TV networks. Rupert Murdoch bought the company in 1988 for 15 million dollars. In 1999, the company was listed on NASDAQ.
What made NDS most notable was the sheer number of Olim that worked there from English-speaking countries, the former Soviet Union, and France. Olim made up the bulk of the company. It was a cornerstone company for the Anglo community in Israel.
When Cisco made the purchase, they absorbed 5000 NDS global employees, 1500 of them in Israel. Cisco soon afterwards shut down the NDS Korea offices and business units in Hong Kong.
In 2013, Cisco laid off dozens of their Jerusalem workers.
This week, Cisco laid off another 90 from the Jerusalem development center.
A former Cisco-NDS employee said there are now less than a 1000 employees in Israel.