Despite being pressured by some of its major investors, the newly appointed CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, Ben Verwaayen, has strongly countered that it is committed to being a major supplier of mobile infrastructure.
At a major presentation on Friday, Verwaayen is expected to stress the company will maintain its R&D resources and will be ready with LTE products when the market demands. His plans are expected to detail how Alcatel-Lucent will focus in a more targeted way than in the past, putting LTE at the very centre of its efforts to regain market share and become a leading supplier within 18 months.
Observers have already questioned this strategy, given that the joint venture has posted seven straight quarters of losses, and believe the company would have better prospects by focusing on a fixed-line market leaving the wireless infrastructure and business to be battled over by Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and the Chinese vendors.
One area the company is expected to exit - albeit as the clear market leader today, is the CDMA arena which is suffering rapid decline in demand and margins.
For more:
- go to EE Times
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