Herman Miller Inc. Allies With Corning Cable Systems

ZEELAND, Mich., Feb. 15 -- Office furniture vendor Herman Miller Inc. announced an agreement with Corning Cable Systems, manufacturer of fiber optic and copper communications network infrastructures, to combine its office furniture products with Corning Cable Systems' fiber optic technology.

Herman Miller will use what it refers to as zone cabling -- replacing home or office copper cables with one fiber optic cable, which is run from a main closet to a distribution hub. This hub is built into the company's office furniture products, which have "cable lay-in" capability. From there, either copper or fiber cables deliver data to each workstation. The company said this makes rearranging workstations faster and more cost effective, since short lengths of copper cable are reused instead of replaced.