You wonder sometimes if telecom is growing, shrinking or doing neither. Yesterday I wrote about subscriber growth at Vonage and Packet8. I felt great after writing about how two service providers unheard of a year ago are doing so well with record subscriber growth. Today is a different story. I saw a release regarding Siemens cutting 1,350 jobs in telecom. 650 of these jobs will be outside the country (meaning outside Germany). I hope none of my friends over in California are affected by this.
Earlier today there was an announcement that Verizon grossed over 3 billion dollars in the fourth quarter, a 6% revenue gain quarter-over-quarter. Wireless attributed 40% of the company's revenues btw. If you analyze all the news you realize, VoIP is doing great, wireless is on fire and traditional PSTN is floundering. Siemens interestingly enough is a VoIP leader... They have been on the leading edge of this technology for over five years. The problem at Siemens according to many on the inside of the company is that the US has its hands tied by Germany and as such is not as nimble as others. Even Avaya as large as they are move more quickly and consistently than Siemens.
And perhaps success is just a matter of consistency. Certainly marketing is. Siemens has a good reputation, they just seem to appear and reappear from the market like one of those monsters on Star Trek that live in two dimensions, popping back and forth between them at will. Still, there is a lot of talent over there and it is possible that this reorg will allow the company to be more nimble, flexible and grow more quickly.
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