I think you have to go back farther than the 2000s for the real reason of its decline. The government split up the telecoms because they were monopolies, and that killed the cash cow that was powering all this research. It seemed bad at the time, but the litany of innovations that came about may have made it worth the extra price for long distance calling.
Today I don't think anyone is looking for Bell to come back, but for Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Accenture, GE, Boeing, Lockheed, Oracle and other companies with huge cash stockpiles and big teams of scientists to get into more of a pure research role.
Oh I agree. When a company has such a long storied history like Lucent then there can be many butterfly effects. It's just lately (past 2 years), the financial picture for Alcatel-Lucent has gotten really bad.
Another factor for such a huge decline was it was at a speculative peak in the 2000s. Investors figured that as the internet switched from text to rich media (video, voip, etc), there would be huge bandwidth demands. A little new gadget called the cell phone was also on the rise. The telecommunications infrastructure would have to be laid reaping huge profits for ALU, they all figured. The stock price got pumped up and when, the company could not deliver...
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I think you have to go back farther than the 2000s for the real reason of its decline. The government split up the telecoms because they were monopolies, and that killed the cash cow that was powering all this research. It seemed bad at the time, but the litany of innovations that came about may have made it worth the extra price for long distance calling.
Today I don't think anyone is looking for Bell to come back, but for Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Accenture, GE, Boeing, Lockheed, Oracle and other companies with huge cash stockpiles and big teams of scientists to get into more of a pure research role.
Oh I agree. When a company has such a long storied history like Lucent then there can be many butterfly effects. It's just lately (past 2 years), the financial picture for Alcatel-Lucent has gotten really bad.
Another factor for such a huge decline was it was at a speculative peak in the 2000s. Investors figured that as the internet switched from text to rich media (video, voip, etc), there would be huge bandwidth demands. A little new gadget called the cell phone was also on the rise. The telecommunications infrastructure would have to be laid reaping huge profits for ALU, they all figured. The stock price got pumped up and when, the company could not deliver...