Gawker: valleywag, alcatel-lucent

Telecom stocks downgraded by still-employed analysts

Paul Boutin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:40:00 EDT

RBC Capital is a Canadian bank whose research analysts are still on the job, unlike half of Wall Street's. Too bad they're not able to crunch some happier numbers: RBC downgraded Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, Garmin, Symmetricom, DSP Group and Ericsson this morning. Thirty-word version from analyst Mark Sue:

Companies with challenged industry structures, declining market share and deteriorating balance sheets may have additional difficulties, and the problems may be further accentuated by carrier customers who may now have decreased access to capital.

Alcatel-Lucent's chairman and CEO both out

Paul Boutin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent, a French-American company created through acquisition in 2006, announced a loss of $1.73 billion, its biggest quarterly loss yet and its sixth in a row. The architects of the Alcatel-Lucent merger, chairman Serge Tchuruk and CEO Patricia Russo, will each leave the company over the next few months — Tchuruk in October, Russo after her successor is hired. (Photo by AP/Christophe Ena)

Microsoft nailed for $1.52 billion in MP3 patent dispute

Chris Mohney — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 09:00:08 EST

It's almost certain to be tied up in appeal for quite some time, but a federal jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent $1.52 billion in damages versus Microsoft for patent infringement on the MP3 music format. Microsoft had paid a German consortium for use of the format years ago, but Alcatel-Lucent contended they were due cash as well, since one of their corporate forerunners (Bell Labs) was also involved in MP3 format development. Whatever happens to Microsoft, this represents a potentially serious headache for anyone else making MP3 players (hardware or software). Apple declined to comment, so perhaps we'll see Steve Jobs's "Thoughts on MP3 Patents" soon.