Lucent Technologies
In 1996, AT&T spun off its Systems and Technology units, along with the famous Bell Laboratories, to form a new company named Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU).
One of the primary reasons for the spinoff was to allow AT&T's equipment manufacturing business to profit from sales to competing telecommunications providers; these customers had previously shown reluctance at purchasing from a direct competitor. Bell Labs brought prestige to the new company, as well as the revenue from thousands of patents.
Lucent is active in the areas of traditional telephone switching, optical, data and wireless networking. They have completed several acquisitions, including a $24 billion purchase of Ascend Communications.
Table of contents |
Diversity
Lucent received a 100% rating on the first Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign in 2002. They have maintained this rating in 2003 and 2004. In addition, the company was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine.
Grants
Lucent has received several federal grants. For example, in February 2005 a team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and Lucent Technologies received a US$800000 grant from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to evaluate modern data-mining methods for discovering behaviour patterns which could be a threat to the national security of the United States of America.
Trivia
In the Dilbert comic strip, when Dogbert was asked to design a new company logo, he takes a piece of paper that his coffee cup was sitting on, and calls it the "Brown Ring of Quality". This may have been a parody of the Lucent logo.
It is also rumored that the Lucent logo was actually designed by Carly Fiorina, who was then the Lucent executive that was responsible for the Lucent spin-off, by using her mother's lipstick. This could inspire the Dogbert's "Brown Ring of Quality" mentioned above.