Not sure there's light at the end of the tunnel yet
Alcatel's biggest mistake was buying Lucent, which resulted in a massive loss of total value for the combined company, and has saddled it with debts that are almost overwhelming.
The jewel in the crown is the IP division, under Basil Alwen. These former Timetra platforms are pretty good boxes, and there's been some good R&D on them to keep them competitive.
The problem is that the IP division has had to accept Alcatel's old Optical Division in the reorg. ALU Optical is losing money big time, and the loss-making optical revenues are bigger than the emerging IP division. Optical transport is a very competitive market (half a dozen competitors in Long Haul, and maybe ten competitors in Metro). And there's virtually no differentiation in their optical product, so difficult to see how they could hope to boost margins.
The article refers to Alcatel wanting to spin out the submarine business next year. In fact this (loss making) division has been for sale for about three years - most recently with Alcatel trying to get the French government to take a stake, or to buy the whole thing. Unless it's radically trimmed down and costs taken out of the business I doubt that anyone would want it.
The transformational act that ALU could pull out of its hat would be to monetize the Bell Labs patent portfolio. For some reason ALU management has repeatedly failed to exploit this option, and it's not clear why. It could yield billions of dollars in revenue, and could clear the debts at a single stroke.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
