Lucent focus all wrong, says analyst

Troubled networking company Lucent has hit back at suggestions that its retreat from the enterprise market could leave some customers in the lurch.

In a recent report, analyst group Meta said that Lucent's offloading of its management offerings, such as the £207.5m cash sale of its billing and customer services solutions to CSG Systems in December, was a sign of "further consolidation in the telecoms equipment space [that] will leave numerous products orphaned". The analyst warned users to "plan carefully".

"We at Meta Group are extremely worried about Lucent's position," said analyst Leif-Olof Wallin. "The company has seen a massive reduction in the workforce and, for that reason, may not be 100 per cent focused on the customer, who may suffer."

Lucent lost around £3.5bn in 2001, and cut its staff globally by some 29,000. Wallin said that the company's new focus, the service provider industry, would also struggle for the next six to nine months, providing Lucent with little cash flow.

But Lucent hit back saying that the report, which stated that most of its Lucent Worldwide Services would be sold off, was incorrect.

In a statement, the company said that it still had "24,000 employees providing network consulting, design, integration and installation services to communications carriers around the world".

It added that units such as its billing and customer services solutions were "not part of the core networking infrastructure and professional services that Lucent is investing in going forward".