Et tu Ma (Bell)?
AT&T has not been exempt from the decline in the IXC market. The old reliable blue chip component has slid to a quarter of it's size ($12.4 billion at book value today ). They have shut down their residential business operations (in response to a Federal Appellate Court decision that allows wholesale rates to float at market) and they are cutting their work force another 20%, this year. While formally they deny that they too are looking for suitors like MCI (who has retained a financial advisor specifically for that purpose), it is now clear that these cuts reflect a dim future for a once great icon of American Industry. AT&T's debt has sunk to "junk bond" status and AT&T's sale to another entity is eminent.
Users should not be alarmed at this point, but should be aware that there is no IXC "safe haven". AT&Ts separation of their residential business operations and subsequent staff reductions appear to indicate that they are not grooming themselves for a takeover by a LEC (Verizon, SBC, BellSouth or Qwest). While foreign suitors are an option we are going for the long shot and predicting that AT&T will be snapped up by IBM. With a mix of VoIP (replacing POTs voice) and an emphasis upon "Enterprise clients", AT&T will be a good mix for IBM. IBM has much of AT&T's billing and OSS systems already plus, VoIP voice belongs in a data center not a CO. Even Gartner is predicting that IP Centrex and managed VoIP are bigger contenders for the Enterprise dollar (long term) than are Nortel and Anaya's softswitches or Cisco's Avvid solutions sold as PBX replacements.
AT&T has been looking at Sonus for VoIP. IBM has experience with Sonus, having implemented a Sonus (VoIP) solution for Qwest, so there is a future technology alignment. As an acquisition AT&T would be about the same size (if not smaller) than IBM's acquisition of PWC a few short years ago. IBM ownership of Tivoli plays nicely into this scenario.
Sun Sentinel: Reduction in work force reflects AT&T's downfall
Users should not be alarmed at this point, but should be aware that there is no IXC "safe haven". AT&Ts separation of their residential business operations and subsequent staff reductions appear to indicate that they are not grooming themselves for a takeover by a LEC (Verizon, SBC, BellSouth or Qwest). While foreign suitors are an option we are going for the long shot and predicting that AT&T will be snapped up by IBM. With a mix of VoIP (replacing POTs voice) and an emphasis upon "Enterprise clients", AT&T will be a good mix for IBM. IBM has much of AT&T's billing and OSS systems already plus, VoIP voice belongs in a data center not a CO. Even Gartner is predicting that IP Centrex and managed VoIP are bigger contenders for the Enterprise dollar (long term) than are Nortel and Anaya's softswitches or Cisco's Avvid solutions sold as PBX replacements.
AT&T has been looking at Sonus for VoIP. IBM has experience with Sonus, having implemented a Sonus (VoIP) solution for Qwest, so there is a future technology alignment. As an acquisition AT&T would be about the same size (if not smaller) than IBM's acquisition of PWC a few short years ago. IBM ownership of Tivoli plays nicely into this scenario.
Sun Sentinel: Reduction in work force reflects AT&T's downfall
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