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Ray Le Maistre

Euroblog: Combes Clearout?

April 25, 2013 | Ray Le Maistre |
Here's a question that's been exercising the team at Light Reading during the past 24 hours: Is the sale of ProgrammableWeb the start of a larger asset divestment program initiated by Alcatel-Lucent's new CEO Michel Combes? (See AlcaLu Sells Off Its API Repository.)

Combes has been in the hot seat at AlcaLu for less than a month, so it hasn't taken him long to offload an asset that his predecessor, Ben Verwaayen, brought onboard. (See Farewell Then, Ben.)

Is this a one-off sale? All the signs say no. There is a lot of pressure on Alcatel-Lucent to slim down: The company has already initiated a restructuring process but many people believe it needs to go further to remain competitive and become profitable in the long term. (See Alcatel-Lucent Sharpens Its Focus.)

The big question, though, is: What will AlcaLu sell? Will it offload any major assets or whole divisions?

Everyone has their own take, and I'm sure we will get some suggestions on the message boards.

I think, though, that the only part of the company that can be deemed untouchable is the IP division -- it's a financial success and leading the company into the world of software defined networking (SDN).

The big part of the company that many people wonder about is the vendor's mobile infrastructure business. More than any other part of AlcaLu, that's the unit that people are waiting to hear about.

Michel Combes, over to you ...

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading


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