ALU Enterprise Spinoff: Where They're Starting From

The new Alcatel Lucent Enterprise may (or may not) get a new name, and promises more investment in growth by the new owner.

Eric Krapf

October 3, 2014

1 Min Read
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Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise officially separated from the parent ALU company this week, with the closing of the unit's sale to China Huaxin Post & Telecommunication Economy Development Center for 202 million Euros ($255.95USD million). The spun-off company will keep the ALU Enterprise name for now, but a rebranding is possible later.

I sat down with Jeanne Bayerl, ALU Enterprise's analyst relations director, at the Interop New York event, and while many future directions remain unannounced, Jeanne was able to give me some key details about the new ALU-E. (For the definitive deep dive on the deal, from the period of its initial announcement, you have to read Brian Riggs' February No Jitter post.)

The spun off company has the right to continue using the Alcatel-Lucent name, but is currently exploring the possibility of a rebranding, Jeanne Bayerl told me. A final decision and announcement about whether to proceed with a new name is likely to come early next year.

Bayerl stressed ALU-E's argument that it's better positioned than many of its peers in the legacy PBX/UC world, since Huaxin is buying an 85% share of the company outright, rather than the company being sold to a private equity invester that would load the cost of the acquisition onto the fledgling company--as PE investors have done with companies like Avaya. "We start with a new company with zero debt," she said.

Read the rest of this article at No Jitter.

About the Author

Eric Krapf

Eric Krapf is General Manager and Program Co-Chair forEnterprise Connect, the leading conference/exhibition and online events brand in the enterprise communications industry. He has been Enterprise Connect.s Program Co-Chair for over a decade. He is also publisher ofNo Jitter, the Enterprise Connect community.s daily news and analysis website.
Eric served as editor of No Jitter from its founding in 2007 until taking over as publisher in 2015. From 1996 to 2004, Eric was managing editor of Business Communications Review (BCR) magazine, and from 2004 to 2007, he was the magazine's editor. BCR was a highly respected journal of the business technology and communications industry.
Before coming to BCR, he was managing editor and senior editor of America's Network magazine, covering the public telecommunications industry. Prior to working in high-tech journalism, he was a reporter and editor at newspapers in Connecticut and Texas.

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