Tag: Alcatel – Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise teams up with RingCentral in UK

Posted on June 28, 2021 by - News

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has joined forces with RingCentral to offer what it claims is a unified comms (UC) solution for channel partners.

Dubbed The Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral, the stuff is for medium and large-sized enterprises and is a unified communication-as-a-service (UCaaS) solution, being launched in the UK, it is claimed.  It has been available other European countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and in The Netherlands.

For Alcatel-Lucent, the UCaaS launch comes at a time when customers are evaluating their comms options because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the anticipated shift to more hybrid working.

IP PBX and unified comms market – here’s Microsoft!

Posted on February 3, 2016 by - News

maxresdefaultBeancounters at IDC claim that Microsoft has become a “head-to-head competitor” in the IP PBX and unified comms (UC) space.

Apparently Vole is taking advantage of the fact that traditional players’ have had a slow reaction to changing adoption patterns.

In the first quarter of 2011 and the second quarter of 2015, Microsoft tripled its market share from 4.8 percent to 15.5 percent in EMEA. This made it a “head-to-head competitor “with Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Aastra and Unify which have been the kings of the space for years.

With more than 15 per cent market share, Microsoft has become the fourth-largest player, IDC said.

IDC’s report said: “This is not a random rise of a vendor/ The companies that had dominated the EMEA IP PBX and UC platform market come from equipment- and on-premise-focused backgrounds. They were too slow to react to the rapidly changing adoption patterns in the market, and Microsoft seized the opportunity.”

Nokia quickly merges Alcatel-Lucent operations

Posted on January 5, 2016 by - News

wellington-bootFormer rubber boot maker Nokia has gained control of French counterpart Alcatel-Lucent following its $17 billion all-share offer and the two telecom equipment makers are planning to swiftly merge their operations.

Nokia wants to be in a stronger position to give Ericsson and Huawei a good kicking in the telecom network gear markets.  To do that it has to absorb  Alcatel-Lucent and restructure its channel rather fast.

Formal closure of the deal is not expected unti the first quarter of next year, but the restructuring will happen before that.

Nokia Chief Executive Rajeev Suri said that from January 14, 2016, Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent will offer a combined end-to-end portfolio of the scope and scale to meet the needs of our global customers.

The stock is still down about 10 percent since the announcement of the deal in April as investors have worried about the integration process and special terms negotiated by the French government.

But in October, Nokia brought forward the deal’s 900 million euro cost-saving target by a year to 2018.

The deal, set to become the biggest transaction in Finland’s corporate history, follows a string of M&A moves that have restructured former mobile phone giant Nokia in recent years.

In 2013, it took control of its network business by buying out Siemens from a joint venture, and in 2014 it sold the ailing mobile phone business to Microsoft. Last year it also sold navigation business.

EC approves Nokia’s Alcatel-Lucent buy

Posted on July 27, 2015 by - News

euThe European Commission has approved Finnish telecom equipment group Nokia’s planned buy of Alcatel-Lucent because the two were not close competitors.

It said the merged Fin-French outfit will still face shedloads of competition even if it will have combined market shares around or above 30 percent for several specific types of equipment.

“The overlaps between the two companies’ activities are effectively limited,” the Commission said in a statement.

Nokia had a strong presence in Europe, where Alcatel-Lucent was small, with the positions reversed in North America.

Nokia launched its all-share deal then worth 15.6 billion euros to buys its smaller French rival in April. The move is seen as the company building up its telecom equipment business to compete with market leader Ericsson.

The merged group is smaller than the son of Eric, but bigger than Chinese rival Huawei’s and ZTE.

 

5G planning starts

Posted on December 10, 2014 by - News

oldfoneWhile most people haven’t even moved to 4G phone networks yet, manufacturers are already talking about standards for the next faster generation of 5G phones.

Major vendors are engaging with the formal standards process, according to ABI Research.  Those include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, mobile operators and academic bodies.

Research director Philip Solis sad: “These companies are all waving their 5G flags, although 5G definitions and visions remain very vague.  But this is not merely marketing. These companies are most certainly putting a stake in the ground that will leverage their, work, competitive strengths, and, most crucially, patents.”

He said that Qualcomm in particular is keeping its head low, but other vendors such as Apple and Google are getting actively involved.

Solis said that efforts by vendors to use their patents will be fiercer than for 4G.

But despite the competitive edge, Solis said that companies are working together “so the standardisation process can hit the ground running”.

Alcatel-Lucent gives copper a new chance

Posted on July 10, 2014 by - News

alcatelAlcatel-Lucent appears to have given new life to a traditional copper telephone line.

The outfit’s Bell Labs research division claimed to set a new world record by delivering “ultra-broadband” speeds of 10,000Mbps over the aging infrastructure using a prototype technology called XG-FAST.

The prototype XG-FAST tech also demonstrated how existing copper access networks could be used to deliver symmetrical speeds of 1Gbps  or 1000Mbps.

It is being described as being an “extension” of G. technology that can provide Internet connection speeds which are “indistinguishable” from fibre optic Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.

BT uses Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology in the United Kingdom to deliver speeds of up to 80Mbps.  That technology works by replacing the existing copper cable between street cabinets and your local telephone exchange with a fibre optic line. The final copper line run from cabinets and into homes is then managed by VDSL2 technology.

G.fast takes even better advantage of the latest advancements in  Vectoring 2.0 to reduce interference. This allows it to operate at speeds of up to 1Gbps, by only by using higher frequencies (106MHz+) and over even shorter runs of copper cable.

If anyone were to design the a system based around it they would combine G.fast with Fibre-to-the-Distribution-Point (FTTdp) or FTTrN technology, which takes the fibre optic cable even closer to homes.

 

Alcatel-Lucent moves to IP networking

Posted on June 20, 2013 by - News

Alcatel-Lucent_Murray_HillAlcatel-Lucent has told the world+dog that it is going to be the second telecom network equipment provider to re-invent itself as an IP networking and ultra-broadband access company.

The troubled French-American maker of telecommunications equipment has been scratching its head trying to come up with a cunning plan to whisk its nadgers out of the fire. The company was created by the 2006 merger of the French company Alcatel and the North American player Lucent Technologies. It has since struggled to expand sales and restore profitability.

Reinventing itself will mean a package of cost cuts, planned job reductions and asset sales designed to raise at least 2 billion euros, or $2.7 billion, by the end of 2015.

The chief, Michel Combes, a former Vodafone senior executive hired in February to lead Alcatel-Lucent, which lost 1.4 billion euros in 2012, said he would refocus the company on selling wireless broadband equipment to carriers in France, China and North America, as an increase in mobile data traffic is prompting network operators to expand and upgrade their grids.

The company, created by the 2006 merger of the French company Alcatel and the North American player Lucent Technologies, has struggled to expand sales and restore profitability. The company has streamlined a costly inventory of old and new mobile network equipment technologies while fending off intense competition from larger rivals like Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Ron Kline, principal network infrastructure analyst, at Ovum said that Alcatel-Lucent’s strategy change shows just how fast market dynamics have changed in a market once dominated by the large Tier-1 telecommunication providers.

These have been increasingly under siege by Internet content providers in the West. They have also been given a good kicking by Chinese vendors, most notably Huawei, and by other specialists.

Kline said the move will allow Alcatel-Lucent to focus on cloud and large-scale internet providers that are generating a growing portion of bandwidth demand.

From a Network Infrastructure perspective the plan will consolidate ALU’s R&D on high growth areas. But he warned that leaving legacy technologies markets is likely to prove to be difficult.

For example if it tries to find a buyer for its Submarine Network Solutions division, it is likely to face regulatory hurdles.

Alcatel – Lucent CEO steps down following $1.85bn loss

Posted on February 7, 2013 by - Moving People, News

alcatel-lucentThe chief executive of struggling telecom equipment maker Alcatel – Lucent is leaving the company. Ben Verwaayen took the helm four years ago and tried to return the outfit to profit. He failed.

Alcatel – Lucent posted a $1.85 billion loss for 2012, compared to a $1.49 billion gain in 2011, so Verwaayen’s departure should come as no surprise.  Verwaayen announced his decision to step down in a statement Thursday, saying that now is the appropriate moment for Alcatel – Lucent to seek new leadership.

“Alcatel-Lucent has been an enormous part of my life. It was therefore a difficult decision to not seek a further term, but it was clear to me that now is an appropriate moment for the Board to seek fresh leadership to take the company forward,” said Verwaayen.

Philippe Camus, Chairman of the Alcatel-Lucent Board, said: “After due reflection, the Board has accepted Ben’s decision to step down as CEO.” Camus went on to thank Verwaayen for his efforts to stabilise the company over the past four years.

It remains unclear who will replace Verwaayen and he is likely to stay on until a successor is found. The company said it would consider in-house candidates as well as candidates from outside the company.

Although Verwaayen did not manage to turn things around, he can hardly be blamed for Alcatel – Lucent’s woes. The company was created following a $11.6 merger of Lucent Technologies and Alcatel in 2006. It has been downhill ever since. Verwaayen, the former head of the  BT Group, joined the company in 2008, after the previous American-led management was ousted.

Alcatel – Lucent has been trying to restructure and reposition itself in the telecom infrastructure market, but so far it did not have much luck competing against the likes of Ericsson and Huawei.