As Alcatel-Lucent continues to struggle with merger integration and economic expectations, it may seem like the company's iconic research arm, Bell Labs, has receded into the shadows. After the Alcatel-Lucent merger was announced, there was an out-pouring of concern for what would happen to this former industry institution. Would it disappear or be drastically reduced?
Some observers might forget that Bell Labs always has been a commercial research lab, even in the days when it was part of AT&T and brilliant, eccentric people like Claude Shannon roamed the halls. But, now a new generation of leadership is looking to take Bell Labs from commercial to competitive, producing marketable technologies on an accelerated pace to help a giant vendor stay afloat.
For more:
- read this profile of Bell Labs at Telephony