from Hacker News

Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs?

by designtofly on 8/29/09, 4:45 AM with 20 comments

• by joez on 8/29/09, 6:30 AM

  This article deceptively makes little mention of Bell's macro condition. Just to say it went from 30,000 employees to 1000 in a 7 year span is not the whole picture. Let me provide some perspective.

  If you look at ALU stock mid 2000, it had at a high of over $80. It currently is at 3.80ish with a huge come back from a low of $1.09.

  Alcatel and Lucent merged in Dec. of 2006.

  In 2007, it lost 3.5 billion on about 18B of sales. In 2008 it lost 5B in 2008 on about 17B of sales. It has had about 4B in cash (&equivalents) and is providing itself with runway to get back into the black with asset sales.

  Since the merger, there have been multiple lay off initiatives to try and stop the bleeding. (Not pansy 5-10% cuts, we're talking about deeper broader strokes)

  Recently, it has begun to do better but is still rolling deep with legacy products and losses.

  ALU is fighting for it's life. Facing these conditions, most companies would have severely cut a 'no short term profit' R&D division.

  The cherry to top off this Article is that ALU is a French company with Lucent and Bell as its American subsidiaries.

  Edit: Grammar and full disclosure: I am an ALU employee.

• by paul9290 on 8/29/09, 6:06 AM

  I think the Internet has hurt our economy and allowed a small part of the population with the know how to make gains from it. Though overall it's a small portion of the total population - how many Googles/Yahoos are there and how plentiful are their jobs - comparing to the industrial age? Also, many industries have been hurt by the Internet as what we once paid we now pay nothing for.

  I obviously love the Internet and it's disruptive nature, but do feel it is a small part of the pie that has hurt our economy.

• by shorbaji on 8/29/09, 5:45 AM

  Yes, the centralized research centers of the past are dwindling - giving way to a new "open innovation" model. However, the article attributes too much to these silos the successful spawning of industries in the U.S.

  I would argue that it was the open ecosystems around these research labs (e.g. silicon valley, cambridge area, etc) that are the true catalyst. These clusters continue to these day and the spirit continues. The reach is now more global.

• by andreyf on 8/29/09, 5:43 AM

  Stopped after first paragraph. The kind of people who have jobs at Bell Labs and the 6.7m unemployed are probably pretty disjoint. Also, the metaphor that jobs need to be created by large institutional spending is silly. Private institutions should spend money to make money. Public institutions should spend money to make the former possible - by investing in education and training, so our citizens are employable.

• by jorgem on 8/29/09, 4:10 PM

  The last administration in Washington FOUGHT against science: Stopping stem cell research, blocking basic research into global warming (and solutions), etc.

  California tried to go it alone on stem cells, at least.

  We get what we vote for.

• by rabidsnail on 8/29/09, 3:42 PM

  It always bothers me when people complain about the number of jobs. Saying we need to create jobs to end the recession is like saying we need to create supermarkets to end the famine.

• by uuilly on 8/29/09, 6:13 AM

  To google.