By William Lazonick and Edward March ♦ In 1999, as the Internet boom was approaching its apex, Lucent Technologies was the world’s largest telecommunications equipment company. With revenues of $38.3 billion, net income of $4.8 billion, and 153,000 employees for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, Lucent was larger and more profitable than Nortel, Alcatel, and Ericsson, its three major global competitors. In fiscal 2006, however, Lucent’s revenues were only $8.8 billion and its employment level stood at 29,800. Both figures were lower than those of its three major rivals. On December 1, 2006, the merger that created Alcatel-Lucent took place, making Lucent a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel. In this paper, we analyze the rise and demise of Lucent Technologies from the time that it was spun off from AT&T in April 1996 to its 2006 merger with Alcatel.
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Grant from the institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) for a project on “The Stock Market and Innovative Enterprise”
William Lazonick and theAIRnet have received a grant from the institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) for a project on “The Stock Market and Innovative Enterprise”.
La bataille des télécom: Vers une France numérique
By Marie Carpenter In 1967, the French telecommunications administration had less than 4 million subscribers, all of them in France. Today, France Télécom Orange has 200 million clients throughout the world. How did this small state utility become one of…
The International Schumpeter Society awarded the 2010 Schumpeter Prize to William Lazonick
The International Schumpeter Society awarded the 2010 Schumpeter Prize to William Lazonick for his book, Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States (Upjohn Institute, 2009). Over the past three decades, the information and communication…
Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy?
By William Lazonick Over the past three decades, the information and communication technology (ICT) industries have propelled the growth of the U.S.economy. In the process there has been a dramatic transformation in the dominant mode of business organization that characterizes…