AlcaLu Seeks Buyer for Enterprise Biz
The Wall Street Journal, which posted the story online Thursday night, says the enterprise business line's annual revenues are US$1.5 billion and that its valuation might exceed $2 billion. (See AlcaLu Unveils OpenTouch Suite and AlcaLu Targets Enterprises With WFO.)
Who might buy? The Journal says AlcaLu has only begun touting the business. Speculating on likely buyers, the report lists Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and -- you guessed it -- private equity firms.
AlcaLu isn't doing this out of distress; in fact, the company's stock has about doubled since the beginning of the year. It's more that products such as telephones and call-center hardware aren't exactly essential to AlcaLu's telecom-network mission.
In fact, the report reminds us that Lucent already sold its enterprise division long ago. That's what begat Avaya Inc.
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading
True Lucent spun off what is now Avaya which is all the more reason you'd think they'd know better. Spinning Avaya was a mistake and now it appears they're considering making the same mistake again. Lucent spun Avaya to survive and lived to regret it, doesn't appear Alcatel-Lucent "needs" to spin the Enterprise business, so what's the motive? Cash in for a short term gain?