Lucent names new services president

Lucent Technologies today announced John Meyer will take over as president of the company’s Worldwide Services unit on April 1.

Meyer comes to Lucent from Electronic Data Systems, where he most recently served as president of management services. He will replace John Heindel, who, the company says, is leaving “to pursue other opportunities.”

Lucent has said recently that it views services as one of its chief growth engines during the coming years. It will be Meyer’s task to make bring that goal to fruition.

According to Meyer, given factors such as the communications sectors’ capital constraints and its need to return to growth, managed services should be an important part of the Lucent’s future services offerings.

“This marketplace is ripe for enhanced professional services but also managed services, with an emphasis on managed services because recurring revenue is a dirty little secret in this business. Getting that revenue stream is how you save on sales and marketing dollars,” he said.

Meyer also said Lucent would be taking a number of other steps that would help Lucent make a name for itself as a services provider. Bell Labs, he said, will turn more of its attention on developing services, redirecting some research efforts away from product development and pure research toward services research. In addition, the unit will be certain to provide services for “best in class” solutions that do not include Lucent equipment in every part of the network, he said.