Lucent blends wireless, wireline divisions

Lucent Technologies is combining its wireless and wireline divisions, the company announced today.

The merged group, to be called the Network Solutions group, will be led by Cindy Christy, who previously led the mobility group. Her new job is effective immediately. Her wireline counterpart, Janet Davidson, becomes chief strategy officer. Lucent Worldwide Services will remain a separate group, led by John Meyer.

The move is not entirely unexpected, as revenues from each group have diverged gradually over several quarters. Revenue from the wireless division grew more than 30% in Lucent's 2004 fiscal year, while revenue from its wireline division shrank 10%. In October 2004, Lucent announced it had combined the application development teams of the two groups.

Customer needs are increasingly less categorized into wireline and wireless needs, said Lucent CEO Pat Russo, who hopes to realize numerous efficiencies resulting from the move. For example, each group had its own bidding proposal teams, forcing sales personnel to work with two teams when pursuing contracts including products from both groups. "This will simplify speed and time to decision," Russo said.

"We'll be able to extend more standardization in our platforming, more standardization in our supply chain as we look across the entirety of the product portfolio set and drive more simplicity, if you will," she added.

The elimination of more personnel is likely to be part of the streamlining process. Lucent has already cut 800 employees in the last six months, the majority of which came from its wireline group.

Separately today, Lucent announced the appointment of Jeong Kim as Bell Laboratories' new president, replacing Bill O'Shea, who is retiring after 33 years. Kim joined Lucent in May 1998 with the company's acquisition of Yurie Systems. He led Lucent's Broadband Carrier Networks and Optical Networking groups before leaving the company in 2001.