Nokia is buying Lucent for $16.5 billion. Rajeev Suri, current Nokia president and CEO, says, ""Together, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia intend to lead in next-generation network technology and services, with the scope to create seamless connectivity for people and things wherever they are. Our innovation capability will be extraordinary, bringing together the R&D engine of Nokia with that of Alcatel-Lucent and its iconic Bell Labs. We will continue to combine this strength with the highly efficient, lean operations needed to compete on a global scale." What R&D engine? VDSL2? VoLTE? IMS? What are you talking about?
Maybe they should take a page out of GENBAND's playbook with fring.
They need a dabble lab, where they can experiment and fail and learn and at some point launch stuff. It is hard to launch hardware. But to merge solely so that " the combined company will gain the "number one or number two position in each of the technologies that matter in our industry"" - is banker talk for get bigger. The only people who benefit here are the bankers. There will be job losses, integration issues, culture conflicts - and at the end of it, the combined company still named Nokia will just be Number 2 in dying product lines. You might as well buy snom and add that to the press release like that was going to be an innovative move too.
The world is going IP, Ethernet and mobile. people assume that means apps and ecosystems. It really means frictionless, integrations, flexible. How can a large company be any of those things?
I look at Ma Bell. It has tried the app store, hackathon, mobile ecosystem for a while - but to what result? Expansion into LATAM is its only way to grow? Probably since the SMB space is cable and the Enterprise space is getting more crowded every day. The price compression in the US means that you have to sell more to meet the same target.
How does a global hardware company jump start its labs; spin up some creativity; and launch gear in the next 3 years when the integration will take at least half that time?
"Combined, Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent spent 4.7 billion euros (~$4.98 billion) (out of net sales of EUR 25.9 billion) and employed over 40,000 in R&D in 2014. The combined company "will be in a position to accelerate development of future technologies including 5G, IP and software-defined networking (SDN), cloud, analytics as well as sensors and imaging," according to today's press release." Will they? When I think about NFV or SDN or IMS, yes, Lucent. When I think about outsourcing a cellular network, yes, Nokia. Cloud and analytics and sensors?? And throwing IOT into the mix is great for the keyword heavy press release, but does little to actual move Nokia-Alcatel-Lucent companies to the forefront of the IOT race.
